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Subject: Human Resource Management

Topic: Organisation , Training & Erg Process

1. Describe how the model of training processes

serves as a problem-solving tool. Include a brief

explanation of each phase (e.g., needs analysis,

design, development, implementation, and

evaluation).

Problem solving is a systematic process of reaching a solution or solutions to a concern or difficulty. The chosen process of problem solving is often determined by the degree of complexity of the concern presented. When the concern is relatively simple, an informal process occurs. However, as the concern grows in complexity, a more formalized, systematic process is followed ( Hagemeyer, Gershenson and Johnson, 2006)

The most commonly used model of training process has following stages:

1. Needs analysis: While designing training programs, the process includes identifying and defining the problem. This is the first step of problem-solving. Ensure recognition of real problem

and not just symptom. Thus trainer needs to decide the right content of training.

2. Designing training program and developing content: included the stage of identifying alternatives, evaluating and choosing the best one of decision making process. The development of content is also based on evaluation of various methods of training and choosing the right one to match the target audiences. The content and method of training helps individuals take quick decisions as it exposes them to various common phase issues.

4. Implementing: the training program that has been designed is futile till it is effectively implemented. Training provides a base to individuals to identify the various tactics of implementing decisions.

5. Evaluation: The training program gives an exposure to individuals to identify the possible methods and areas where effective decision making can be measured and rectified.

Training supports critical thinking. The meticulous thought about the problem’s real constraints can save a lot of time. By identifying a problem’s true constraints, one can learn a lot about what the solution most look like (Nalebuff and Ayres, 2003).

2. Should an organization’s strategies be reactive,

proactive, or both? Support your answer.

Strategic decision making is heavily emphasized in both business policy and organizational theory. This delineates the activities by which organizational leaders establish the social or economic mission of the organization, define domains of action and determine how it will navigate or compete within chosen domain (Bourgeois, 1980). Both business policy and organizational theory have focused on this through different perspectives. Business policy’s approach has been to view management as a proactive or opportunistic agent and has centered mush of its research on strategy variable (Hatten, Schendel and Cooper, 1978). Organizational theory on the other hand takes a more reactive stance by viewing the environment as a deterministic force to which organizations respond (Anderson and Paine, 1975).

Attempts to synthesize the frameworks developed by Miles and Snow (1978) and Porter (1980) have also emerged. Parnell and Carraher (2002) proposed a categorization along two dimensions: consistency and proactive ness. Consistent firms would pursue the defender (Miles and Snow, 1978) and low cost (Porter, 1980) strategies. Proactive firms would choose a prospector or differentiation strategy.

Reactors and firms stuck in the middle both seem to lack clear strategic direction. Thus an integration of both proactive and reactive research is required and it needs to be identified where and in what situation which should be applied.

3. Explain social learning theory.

People learn through observing others’ behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors. Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action (Bandura, 1977). Social learning theory emphasizes the environmental rather than the personal determinants of behavior (Chell, 1985; Chell et al., 1991). One way in which learning can occur is vicariously, through the observation of behaviors in others, referred to as models (Bandura, 1977). Entrepreneurial role models may appear in the guise of family members, employers, teachers, or anyone whom the individual has had the opportunity to observe (Scherer et al., 1989). Chell (1985) argues that the entrepreneur develops expectancies and values from social experiences. According to social

learning theory, risk-- taking behaviors can be viewed as learned behavior often transmitted by parents and other influential individuals, and are shaped by the socio-cultural environment. Trait theorists would also recognize that the environment is a determiner of behavior as well as traits: psychologists are not 'hard determinists'; they are 'soft determinists' (Low and MacMillan, 1988).

Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

Necessary conditions for effective modeling:

1. Attention — various factors increase or decrease the amount of attention paid. Includes distinctiveness, affective valence, prevalence, complexity, functional value. One’s characteristics (e.g. sensory capacities, arousal level, perceptual set, past reinforcement) affect attention.

2. Retention — remembering what you paid attention to. Includes symbolic coding, mental images, cognitive organization, symbolic rehearsal, motor rehearsal

3. Reproduction — reproducing the image. Including physical capabilities, and self-observation of reproduction.

4. Motivation — having a good reason to imitate. Includes motives such as past (i.e. traditional behaviorism), promised (imagined incentives) and vicarious (seeing and recalling the reinforced model)

4. Explain ERG theory.

The ERG theory, a model of human motivation developed 1969 by Clayton Alderfer, extended and simplified Maslow's Hierarchy using a relatively smaller set of needs. The ERG theory attempts to answer the question, "what motivates a person to act?" and assumes that all human activities are motivated by need. The ERG theory consolidated Maslow's five need categories into three levels of need; Existence, Relatedness, and Growth. Each category is described as follows.

1. Existence Needs: include all material and physiological desires (e.g., food, water, air, clothing, safety, physical love and affection).

2. Relatedness Needs: encompass relationships with significant others (e.g., to be recognized and feel secure as part of a group or family).

3. Growth Needs: impel a person to make creative or productive effects on himself and the environment (e.g., to progress toward one's ideal self).

The concepts of existence, relatedness, and growth needs are separate and distinct categories. The concept of prioritizing needs is based on a continuum in terms of their concreteness. Existence needs are the most concrete, and easiest to verify. Relatedness needs are less concrete than existence needs, which depend on a relationship between two or more people. Finally, growth needs are the least concrete in that their specific objectives depend on the uniqueness of each person.

Three relationships among different categories, satisfaction-progression, frustration-regression, and satisfaction-strengthening, are identified in ERG theory. Satisfaction-progression stands for moving up to higher-level needs based on satisfied needs. Frustration-regression is when a person moves backward from current unsatisfied needs to lower-level needs. The idea of satisfactions-strengthening represents strengthening a current level of satisfied needs iteratively.

Satisfaction-progression plays an important part in Maslow's original concept of a need hierarchy (but not in the ERG theory). In ERG theory, the

movement upward from relatedness satisfaction to growth desires does not presume satisfaction of existence needs. However, the movement from existence satisfaction to relatedness desires is necessary according to Maslow's theory (i.e., individuals move up the hierarchy as a result of satisfying lower order needs.

Frustration-regression identifies one's motivation in explaining fundamental desires. Frustration-regression suggests that an already satisfied need can become active when a higher need cannot be satisfied. Thus, if a person is continually frustrated in his/her attempts to satisfy growth, relatedness needs can resurface as key motivators.

Satisfaction-strengthening indicates that an already satisfied need can maintain satisfaction or strengthen lower level needs iteratively when it fails to gratify high-level needs (Chang and Yuan,2008).

5. Discuss he proactive approach and the reactive

approach to TNA (training needs analysis).

The focus of training needs analysis is performance. The starting point for the process, as recommended by numerous textbook models, is the identification of training needs as they relate to individual or

organizational performance. The focus is very much on job behavior and task analysis, with the gathering of quantitative data from field observations, structured questionnaires and formal interviews being the major emphasis. Naturally this can be very expensive and time-consuming and the original needs may well have changed by the time the data has been analyzed and the subsequent training programs designed and delivered. However, such a comprehensive approach is rare: most organizations follow their own less systematic procedures based on tradition, office politics and various internal and external pressures. A reactive, problem-based approach to needs analysis and HRD planning is no longer sufficient. Adult educationalist Stephen Brookfield (1986) warns of a further shortcoming of traditional training models. Their insistence that training must be outcome-oriented and derived from predetermined behavioral objectives neglects the possibility of unplanned learning occurring and the important roles played by insight, reflection and discovery on the part of adult learners. Since these are the very sorts of learning skills needed for future work it could be argued that rigid behavioral objectives are antipathetic to current notions of competence.

In the leaner, more results-oriented organizations of today, training must be a deliberate organizational strategy and not just a reaction to a problem or a political decision based on managerial whim. This means the emphasis of needs analysis will have shifted from looking for the cause of a problem to assisting people in their work and careers and to helping them achieve greater future proficiency and satisfaction. This certainly involves problem correction and the identification of skills and knowledge currently lacking, but the emphasis is on future efficiency, not past deficiencies. It requires an attitudinal shift on the part of trainers and managers to see training as much more than basic skill building (Anderson, 1994).

6. Compare reliability and validity.

Reliability seeks to produce consistent, predictable outcomes by utilizing a system that is restricted to the use of objective data - for instance, predicting a customer’s future purchase by using data collected in Customer Information System. To produce highest reliability, a system must stick to quantitative, objective data and use of the data that does not involve judgment, because blending subjective and judgment leads to inconsistency. Validity, on the

other hand, seeks to produce outcomes that meet the desired objective, even if the system employed can’t produce a consistent, predictable outcome.

Validity and reliability anchor down opposite ends of the spectrum that defines how systems are conceived and solutions are framed. A perfectly reliable system is one that produces an identical output each time if the same inputs are introduced to the system repeatedly. A perfectly valid system is one that produces a result that is shown, through the passage of time, to have been correct. In most situations, validity and reliability are traded off for one another, to achieve high validity, a system must take into account a high degree of complexity featuring many variables and judgmental measurement of variables; and to achieve high reliability, the number of variables has to be reduced and the measurement of the variables standardized. Tests like Stanford –Binet and Wechsler Intelligence Scale, Emotional Intelligence by Goleman all suggest the same phenomenon (Martin, 2005).

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