HRM

‘Behaviorist and cognitive theories are still appropriate for contemporary practice in human resource management.’ Critically examine this statement with reference to learning theories outlined in Module 1.

 

Behaviorist and cognitive theories have been around for many years and have been used by many organizations in the past in the practice of human resource management. However, with the introduction of other new theories, many organizations opted to use the more modern theories for human resource management. Thus this paper would like to examine if the behaviorist and cognitive theories are still being used in contemporary organizations and if they are still appropriate.

Human resources could be considered a division of the general science of management. Since the management of human resource or people must be integrated with the management of the organization, because people comprise the enterprise and the labor needed for it to function, human resource is therefore also a function and responsibility of the management. This goes to say that problems and issues in the human resource department can significantly affect management strategies of an industry or organization. In any organization, people that compose it are born with different traits and behaviors, are immersed in different cultures, have diverse characters, interests and attitudes. One cannot expect an ideal mode of behavior and conduct from a group of people coming from diverse backgrounds. Thus, the need for rules as well as effective leadership is necessary. Also, certain standards or norms of conduct must be established and some form of control instituted in order to preserve order and harmony in the organization.

In international organizations and industries which have expanded over the years, the problem of a satisfactory organization arises; this is primarily due to the differences within each individual. Authority, responsibility, labor, and functions within the organization would then need to be segregated or divided. This division of the organization is needed as this would help in making the industry run smoothly. Although this segregation can help the organization in many other ways aside from working efficiently, it also comes with it the problem of managing a compartmentalized and large organization (1995).

According to  (2001), human resource management is defined as the process of coordinating an organisation’s human resources, or employees, to meet organisational goals. Thus, determination and evaluation of recruits should be considered such as employee recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, professional development, safety and health, forecasting, and labour relations.

The formulated human resource management model should respond in maintaining a diverse workforce, dealing with major technological changes, keeping up with governmental regulations, handling corporate restructuring and downsizing, and formulating strategies essential to personnel management. In addition, good HRM model also considers training and motivations of recruits in order to have high and quality performance. The obvious, direct route to high performance would seem to be the discovery of those motivational wellsprings that drive human action. 

Organizations cannot expect their employees to leave their usual behavior at the door when they enter the environment at work. Status seeking behaviors, gossip, dominance, and harassment are all too normal in organizations and thus create conflict, intimidation, and jealousy among employees in the work environment. It is impossible for these behaviors to be completely eliminated. However, they can be understood and considered when organizations create policies.  (2000) suggests that, “when considering one’s position in an organization, it is advantageous to be socially intelligent, which can be thought of as being skilled at social networking, knowing whom to trust, and being able to form powerful relationships.”

Effective use of people makes seems to be one of the primary assets of a business aside from its financial, technological and physical resources therefore it has to be managed effectively and strategically. Defining Human Resource Management, HRM, it is a range of management activities which aim to achieve organizational objectives through effective use of employees (2006).

Executives worldwide are concerned with the effectiveness and value of the human resource function. Whether a company is streamlining HR processes, redefining the relationship between human resources and the line, or defining new competencies for HR professionals, one fact is perfectly clear ( 2005). It is said that the philosophy of human resource management is based on the simple belief that human resources are the most important asset in achieving and sustained business success. The realization became the driving force behind the creation of human resource management resulting in organizations taking a strategic approach to the management of their people.

 

The true worth of human resource management is becoming more widely understood as human resource management steadily interweaves all aspects of people management and development within the company (1995).

 

According to information, human resource planning is the first step in effective human-resource management as it involves forecasting the human-resource needs of the organization and planning certain useful and important steps that the organization must take in order to meet those human resource needs that will contribute a high percentage for its overall success as human-resource planning should be connected to the organization’s strategic objectives and mission (1983).

            Indeed, the area of human performance improvement is not something new. It has been in existence as a formal field of study and practice for many years already. Human performance improvement is part of behavioral science, the study of human behavior which was initiated by B.F. Skinner, Harvard psychologist, in his early experiments in 1940. He emphasized concentration upon relations between man and his environment. Since the last few decades, this became popular to managers, industrialists, and psychologists in their desire to maximize the effectiveness and productivity of their human resources.

            Theories on behavior as applied to organizations grew out of a desire by a number of psychologists in order to emphasize the use of empirical scientific principles so as to increase the status of this discipline as an area of study. the argument between these psychologists is that knowledge of the learning process could only be derived from the observation of behavior.

            Of course, everyone knows that to be able to learn, learners must not just be passive subject reacting to a stimulus in the environment. There are ways on which learners are able to learn, such as by doing, by experiencing, and by engaging in trial and error. What the learners have learned, under specific conditions, and the consequences that maintain or support the behavior that is learned all work together, and must both be measurable and observable. Behaviorism also creates the assumption that learning is a change in behavior brought about by experience and learning is a function of building associations amongst the event on which the behavior occurs and the response to this event or the behavior itself. To strengthen this learning, it needs to have reinforcement or repeated continuous pairing of the specific stimulus with its corresponding response.

In an educational setting, learners must first be assessed for their specific needs and capabilities so that the instruction that will be given to them is meaningful and appropriate in order to successfully change behavior. From this, observable goals can be formulated to proceed with the learning task at hand. These learning tasks arranged in a logical order in accordance to a hierarchy. The performance of the learner regarding his or her tasks is weighed against objective criteria for correctness and mastery. Reinforcement will then help maintain the learner’s previously learned behaviors (1996).

            Principles of behaviorism omit the psychology of unobservable mental states or Gestalts and the subjectivity of introspection, both of which are a part of human behavior. Cognitive psychologists believe prior knowledge and mental processes intervene between a stimulus and response that operate to reduce the predictability of human behavior (response) given a stimulus.

            In the field of organizations, there are three behaviorist theories that are much known. These are John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and the previously mentioned B.F. Skinner. While it was Skinner who made many notable contributions to the understanding of the learning process, there is much controversy generated by his work. Despite the limitations of behaviorist theories, it still has proved to be very useful as a resource in informing practice in educational settings.

Consequences for bad behavior are a form of punishment. The definition of punishment is an action that makes a behavior less likely to occur. It is important to explain to your staff that there is nothing inherently wrong with the term punishment–and that such steps are often necessary to provide the kind of limits and structure that campers need in order to succeed. For punishment to work (i.e., to be effective in reducing unwanted behavior) several things must be remembered (2004).

            The consequence should occur as soon after the unwanted behavior as possible. The consequence must be applied consistently, meaning that whenever the bad behavior occurs, the consequence must be applied. Eliminate “creative” punishments. These are any consequences that single a child out and force him or her to perform some kind of aversive, humiliating action. This is a terrible, ineffective idea, because it makes a “cult figure” out of the worker, making him or her a legend among their peers. Humiliating an employee in an inept attempt to force good behavior should be considered a form of abuse.

            The interpretation by employees of required changes to behaviour was coloured by a number of factors. First, obviously enough, was the degree of change from existing behaviours. The further the new behaviours were from the old ones, the more anxiety was produced, and in some cases this could act to resist the change process (1999).

            In such organizations, recognition of strategic objectives, clarity of work goals, satisfaction with appraisal and rewards, and the receiving of appropriate training and development were all scored highly in the employee surveys. In these organizations, the performance management system has been established for many years and is capable of being fine-tuned according to circumstances. Team working has had a long history in these firms, and it is characteristic that a large degree of slack has been driven out of these organizations, making the gaining of company-wide support for the business goals critical. Communication of changes, even if the changes are not finalized, reduced the spread of rumour and lessened fear and anxiety. The few layers between senior managers and customer-facing employees encouraged strong feedback processes (1999). In the organizations making large changes in terms of identity, the embedding of new performance management processes was difficult to achieve as managers stuck to the old values which had served them well in the past.

            The concept of behaviorism requires an understanding of the nature and behavior of man, his values and motivations, his psychology as a human being and his needs, coupled with an attempt to satisfy his needs through a blending of management variables, such as organizational relations, leadership, and supervision.

Today, in contrast with many decades ago, there is little overt opposition in any large organization, private, nonprofit, or public, in industrialized or developing countries, to the general belief that management development is a vital necessity. Manager effectiveness has an enormous impact on contemporary organizational success and competitive advantage. As an organization grows and matures, high-quality management talent is crucial to its success. Organizations must therefore provide instruction for their managers and their high-potential management candidates to help these individuals perform

The newer methods like the fast-track management development program is a planned set of experiences designed to accelerate the development of individuals identified as having executive-level potential so as to make their talents quickly available to the organization. Participation in these programs is selective and exclusive. Fast-track programs typically employ a composite of developmental tactics including educational experiences, executive mentoring and coaching, specific skills training, and accelerated rotation through job assignments. The career stage at which participants are identified and enter into such programs varies as does the duration of these programs. Given the competition for managerial talent facing them, organizations are increasingly attempting to identify and attract high-potential managers and immediately putting them into a fast-track program (1991). For a program to be effective, managerial personnel at all levels must be trained in the fundamentals of job design, performance appraisal, career planning, and counseling (2002).

The newer attacks on this problem of management development fall into four categories. Those in one category focus on knowledge and ability in rational analysis and decision making, using such training techniques as practice in the use of formal problem-solving procedures, the case study, and business games. They are derived from the hypothesis that, by discussing, analyzing, experimenting, and practicing the use of rational methods for solving managerial problems, the manager can gain understanding and appreciation of the methods and confidence in his or her skill and ability to use them and that, consequently, he or she will attempt to use them upon re-entry. The problem of use upon re-entry is sometimes considered and discussed as one of the managerial problems subject to rational analysis (1998).

A second category, recognizing the gap between knowledge and insight and action, tries to help the manager to become a change agent by helping him or her to recognize feelings and how others are affected, and by providing opportunities to try to change behavior. Some techniques which attempt to provide this type of experience, with varying degrees of success, are the role-play, sensitivity training, certain types of management games, and laboratory train (1998).

            A third approach is based upon the hypothesis that one can learn how to do something as complicated and as difficult as changing a part of an organization or aspects of organizational forms only by doing it in a real-life situation. In this approach one need not necessarily work on one’s own organization. The project and task force techniques are developed from this hypothesis (1998).

            The fourth category carries this concept to its logical conclusion. It takes the position that a manager can learn how to change his or her behavior only by actually trying to change it on the job. It assumes, in effect, that all organizations are unique. It is a logical development from this hypothesis to use the job in the actual organization as the focus for development. The major approaches in this category are vertical training, the modular preceptoral method, and organizational development. Some programs are variations and combinations of these four methods. Few focus so directly upon the re-entry and change problems that only one approach is applicable (1998).

Despite the mentioned controversies regarding behaviorist theories, it is still very useful in many forms of organization. Behaviorist theories place emphasis on observable environmental stimuli and observable behavior breaks down when we try to explore everyday human learning. As previously mentioned, you cannot expect people to leave their evolved behavior at their doors once they enter the workplace. Thus it is important to acknowledge the ways in which individuals adapt to one another through observing and interpreting each other’s actions.

It is the relationship between individuals and organizations which makes the re-entry problem important. Implicitly or explicitly, every development approach and technique attempts to deal with it. The older development methods do not ignore it. They make the assumption that it is too complicated and too personal to be dealt with in a particular program. Consequently, they try to provide the participant with as much information as possible and leave it up to the manager, upon re-entry, to determine how best to use the information to change behavior in the direction of the learning. The older approaches do not make any attempt to condition the behavior of the manager upon re-entry ( 1998).

Business and organizations that want more from their management development money may need to go more than just providing training programs for the employees. This would bring about the responsibility for organizational learning to the organization’s educators. The line management and more importantly the senior management of organizations will need to work with the educators in the organization in order to realize this goal if management development has plans to contribute to the learning within the organization (Lyles & Mullen, 1993).

Every practice is based directly or indirectly on theory. Nowhere is there more theory than in the learning enterprise. Seldom is theory systematically applied in management development. The tendency is to use theory to support technology, rather than to derive technology from theory. From an analysis of different schools of theory, one can conclude that no one learning theory is comprehensive and adequate for all situations. Generally speaking, many practitioners, at times, use the theory most applicable for the desired outcome. There is, however, a mainstream hypothesis: that experiential learning is more effective than other approaches for increasing will and competence to learn and use learning (1998).

            In pursuing fit between the environmental context and the organization’s strategy and structure, a substantial amount of interpretative activity on the part of managers ensues, together with a change in their cognitive structures. The change process, therefore, far from being solely a rational, straightforward process, involves the shifting viewpoints of managers, which can be highly significant and instrumental.

            We saw fundamental changes in what people were assessed against. One of the functions of the performance management process, in addition to being seen as the ‘objective’ measure of individual performance, is to communicate organizational norms or ‘culture’ and to reinforce the change process. Performance management, with its aim of linking individuals’ goals and responsibilities to the objectives of the business and integrating key interventions–appraisal, rewards, and training and development–can be seen as a core strategic process, facilitating strategic alignment. In all the organizations, new competency frameworks have been introduced which reflect the new values and strategic focus. These competencies have centered around leadership and leadership development, as well as explicit emphasis on teamwork and customer satisfaction (1999).

            The companies which experienced difficulty in the change process were largely those firms which had been in markets largely isolated from strong competition and which had developed internal cultures dominated by paternalism, rigid hierarchies, and strong centralist command and control styles. In many ways, these cultures had been a boon, providing stable employment and a vertical career ladder, encouraging a strong relational psychological contract. However, the strength of their organizational identities was such that, when the time for change arrived, the leap to a new form of organization proved very hard for employees to make in cognitive terms. Disbelief at the changes and nostalgia for old ways of working were typical reactions. For many, it was their first experience of change. Added to this, for many employees, the organization had not given any idea of what the new work setting would look like, nor what this would entail for job roles and responsibilities ( 1999).

            It is a given that organizations must expect to constantly review and update their technology. Technology is one particular manifestation of change. All change is difficult and HR departments must consider themselves as agents of change. In particular, with respect to technology, they must minimize resistance to new technology by ensuring that employees are provided with the necessary training and support processes to be able to cope with the change.

            All the other factors are particular manifestations of perhaps the most important of all – change. The HR department must embrace and support change. This means, of course, that the HR department must itself change – it must be seen to be flexible, responsive and value-adding. It cannot drive and support change elsewhere in the organization if it itself cannot adapt. It must examine and adopt (adapting if necessary) new structures, new working processes and a new culture of business support.

            Rejecting the central theoretical tenets of behaviourism, cognitive psychologists (and cognitive scientists in general) focus on the analysis of the various intervening mental processes that mediate responses to the environment. In order to aid understanding of the complex mental processes performed by the brain in response to environmental stimuli, researchers have found it useful to conceptualize these as a sequence of activities involving a variety of functions, including sensory and perceptual processes, memory (both working memory and long term memory), and decision-making, culminating in the execution of skilled responses.

Cognitive theory and research have also been applied in an attempt to better understand the underlying bases of appraisers’ judgments in the appraisal of performance. In the area of training and development, conventional approaches to the analysis, design, and evaluation of interventions are being augmented, and in some cases openly challenged, by the application of cognitive constructs, theories, and principles.

            Another major body of theory and research that has led to the development of key insights into cognitive processes in workplace settings is drawn from the field of behavioural decision-making. Behavioural decision researchers have amassed an impressive volume of evidence demonstrating the fact that in order to render the world manageable, decision-makers employ a variety of `rules of thumb’, known as `heuristics’. Heuristic processing strategies enable the decision-maker to cut through the welter of information bombarding them, by imposing a number of simplifying assumptions on the data.

            Cognitive theories on the other hand come from a very different intellectual tradition to that of the field of behaviorism. From the cognitive perspective, the emphasis has been primarily on trying to map and explore the mental processes which underlies human learning. Just like the behaviorist theories, there are also many different forms of cognitive theory that have been proposed. Among these are the European cognitive tradition, containing the works of Wetheimer, Kohler, Koffka, and Lewin.

There are also the notable works of those who are neo-behaviorists. These are those who attempted to reconcile the two contrasting views of behaviorist and cognitive learning. The more famous of these neo-behaviorists are Bandura and Gagne. A striking feature is that this group of theories links simple forms of learning which is based on the principles of classical and instrumental conditioning to complex forms of learning. This effectively offers a behaviorist explanation of how individuals might apply previously learned rules to solve new problems. It also places emphasis on the importance of structuring material to be learned by breaking down into its component parts.

            Managers are more often being challenged to balance the demands of thinking globally and acting locally. People, ideas, products and information must be moved around the world to meet local needs. Volatile political situations, global trade issues, fluctuating exchange rates, and unfamiliar cultures now enter into business decisions. Managers must become schooled in the ways of their international customers. They must enhance their ability to learn to work together to manage diversity, complexity, and ambiguity across the globe. Within this environment, human resource managers have a particular job to do in ensuring that human resource policies and practices pay attention to the balance between consistency and co-ordination versus recognition of cultural and other differences.

Human resource professionals thus need to use their sense of commitment, inter-personal skills and training to help make their company a success. The environment of constant change means that they must pay particular attention to cultivating competencies in communications and decision-making skills. They must be able to present the vision of their company clearly. Within this, they must also have a clear and functional perception of the operational management needs. They need to examine and review existing procedures to ensure that improved solutions can be designed and built. They need to emphasize the importance of continuous progress and managing change through goal setting. And finally, they must ensure that the resulting organization is populated and driven by empowered employees.

            In conclusion, many organizations are still applying behaviorist and cognitive theories in the practice of human resource management. Even if these theories have been around and are being replaced with newer and more modern theories, these two theories still prove to be effective. Thus even with the different advances and changes, these theories are still appropriate for use.

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