Saturday, March 24, 2012

Definition of Entrepreneurship

1.Entrepreneurship is more than simply "starting a business." The
definition of entrepreneurship is a process through which individuals
identify opportunities, allocate resources, and create value. This
creation of value is often through the identification of unmet needs
or through the identification of opportunities for change.

Entrepreneurs see "problems" as "opportunities," then take action to
identify the solutions to those problems and the customers who will
pay to have those problems solved.

Entrepreneurial success is simply a function of the ability of an
entrepreneur to see these opportunities in the marketplace, initiate
change (or take advantage of change) and create value through
solutions.

2. The one extreme an Entrepreneur is a person of very high aptitude
who pioneer change,possessing characteristics found in only a very
small fraction of the population. on the other extreme of definitions,
anyone who wants to work for himself or herself is considered to be an
Entrepreneur.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Comparison of Leader Vs Manager---Theories of Motivation---Leadership Theories


Comparison of Leader Vs Manager

Basis

Manager

Leader

Origin

A person becomes a manager by virtue of his position.

A person becomes a leader on basis of his personal qualities.

Formal Rights

Manager has got formal rights in an organization because of his status.

Rights are not available to a leader.

Followers

The subordinates are the followers of managers.

The group of employees whom the leaders leads are his followers.

Functions

A manager performs all five functions of management.

Leader influences people to work willingly for group objectives.

Necessity

A manager is very essential to a concern.

A leader is required to create cordial relation between person working in and for organization.

Stability

It is more stable.

Leadership is temporary.

Mutual Relationship

All managers are leaders.

All leaders are not managers.

Accountability

Manager is accountable for self and subordinates behaviour and performance.

Leaders have no well defined accountability.

Concern

A manager's concern is organizational goals.

A leader's concern is group goals and member's satisfaction.

Followers

People follow manager by virtue of job description.

People follow them on voluntary basis.

Role continuation

A manager can continue in office till he performs his duties satisfactorily in congruence with organizational goals.

A leader can maintain his position only through day to day wishes of followers.

Sanctions

Manager has command over allocation and distribution of sanctions.

A leader has command over different sanctions and related task records. These sanctions are essentially of informal nature.

 

 

Leadership Theories

1. "Great Man" Theories:

Great man theories assume that the capacity for leadership is inherent – that great leaders are born, not made. These theories often portray great leaders as heroic, mythic and destined to rise to leadership when needed. The term "Great Man" was used because, at the time, leadership was thought of primarily as a male quality, especially in terms of military leadership

2. Trait Theories:

Similar in some ways to "Great Man" theories, trait theories assume that people inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited to leadership. Trait theories often identify particular personality or behavioral characteristics shared by leaders. If particular traits are key features of leadership, then how do we explain people who possess those qualities but are not leaders? This question is one of the difficulties in using trait theories to explain leadership.

3. Contingency Theories:

Contingency theories of leadership focus on particular variables related to the environment that might determine which particular style of leadership is best suited for the situation. According to this theory, no leadership style is best in all situations. Success depends upon a number of variables, including the leadership style, qualities of the followers and aspects of the situation.

4. Situational Theories:

Situational theories propose that leaders choose the best course of action based upon situational variables. Different styles of leadership may be more appropriate for certain types of decision-making.

5. Behavioral Theories:

Behavioral theories of leadership are based upon the belief that great leaders are made, not born. Rooted in behaviorism, this leadership theory focuses on the actions of leaders not on mental qualities or internal states. According to this theory, people can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation.

6. Participative Theories:

Participative leadership theories suggest that the ideal leadership style is one that takes the input of others into account. These leaders encourage participation and contributions from group members and help group members feel more relevant and committed to the decision-making process. In participative theories, however, the leader retains the right to allow the input of others.

7. Management Theories:

Management theories, also known as transactional theories, focus on the role of supervision, organization and group performance. These theories base leadership on a system of rewards and punishments. Managerial theories are often used in business; when employees are successful, they are rewarded; when they fail, they are reprimanded or punished.

8. Relationship Theories:

Relationship theories, also known as transformational theories, focus upon the connections formed between leaders and followers. Transformational leaders motivate and inspire people by helping group members see the importance and higher good of the task. These leaders are focused on the performance of group members, but also want each person to fulfill his or her potential. Leaders with this style often have high ethical and moral standards.

 

Theories of Motivation

Overview

At a simple level, it seems obvious that people do things, such as go to work, in order to get stuff they want and to avoid stuff they don't want. 

Why exactly they want what they do and don't want what they don't is still something a mystery. It's a black box and it hasn't been fully penetrated.

Overall, the basic perspective on motivation looks something like this:

In other words, you have certain needs or wants (these terms will be used interchangeably), and this causes you to do certain things (behavior), which satisfy those needs (satisfaction), and this can then change which needs/wants are primary (either intensifying certain ones, or allowing you to move on to other ones). 

A variation on this model, particularly appropriate from an experimenter's or manager's point of view, would be to add a box labeled "reward" between "behavior" and "satisfaction". So that subjects (or employees), who have certain needs do certain things (behavior), which then get them rewards set up by the experimenter or manager (such as raises or bonuses), which satisfy the needs, and so on.

Classifying Needs

People seem to have different wants. This is fortunate, because in markets this creates the very desirable situation where, because you value stuff that I have but you don't, and I value stuff that you have that I don't, we can trade in such a way that we are both happier as a result. 

But it also means we need to try to get a handle on the whole variety of needs and who has them in order to begin to understand how to design organizations that maximize productivity.

Part of what a theory of motivation tries to do is explain and predict who has which wants. This turns out to be exceedingly difficult.

Many theories posit a hierarchy of needs, in which the needs at the bottom are the most urgent and need to be satisfied before attention can be paid to the others. 

Maslow

Maslow's hierarchy of need categories is the most famous example: 

self-actualization

esteem

belongingness

safety

physiological

Specific examples of these types are given below, in both the work and home context. (Some of the instances, like "education" are actually satisfiers of the need.)

Need

Home

Job

self-actualization

education, religion, hobbies, personal growth

training, advancement, growth, creativity

esteem

approval of family, friends, community

recognition, high status, responsibilities

belongingness

family, friends, clubs

teams, depts, coworkers, clients, supervisors, subordinates

safety

freedom from war, poison, violence

work safety, job security, health insurance

physiological

food water sex

Heat, air, base salary

According to Maslow, lower needs take priority. They must be fulfilled before the others are activated. There is some basic common sense here -- it's pointless to worry about whether a given color looks good on you when you are dying of starvation, or being threatened with your life. There are some basic things that take precedence over all else. 

Or at least logically should, if people were rational. But is that a safe assumption? According to the theory, if you are hungry and have inadequate shelter, you won't go to church. Can't do the higher things until you have the lower things. But the poor tend to be more religious than the rich. Both within a given culture, and across nations. So the theory makes the wrong prediction here.

Or take education: how often do you hear "I can't go to class today, I haven't had sex in three days!"?  Do all physiological needs including sex have to be satisfied before "higher" needs?  (Besides, wouldn't the authors of the Kama Sutra argue that sex was a kind of self-expression more like art than a physiological need? that would put it in the self-actualization box). Again, the theory doesn't seem to predict correctly.

Cultural critique: Does Maslow's classification really reflect the order in which needs are satisfied, or is it more about classifying needs from a kind of "tastefulness" perspective, with lofty goals like personal growth and creativity at the top, and "base" instincts like sex and hunger at the bottom? And is self-actualization actually a fundamental need? Or just something that can be done if you have the leisure time?

Alderfer's ERG theory

Alderfer classifies needs into three categories, also ordered hierarchically:

  • growth needs (development of competence and realization of potential)
  • relatedness needs (satisfactory relations with others)
  • existence needs (physical well-being)

This is very similar to Maslow -- can be seen as just collapsing into three tiers. But maybe a bit more rational. For example, in Alderfer's model, sex does not need to be in the bottom category as it is in Maslow's model, since it is not crucial to (the individual's) existence. (Remember, this about individual motivation, not species' survival.) So by moving sex, this theory does not predict that people have to have sex before they can think about going to school, like Maslow's theory does. 

Alderfer believed that as you start satisfying higher needs, they become more intense (e.g., the power you get the more you want power), like an addiction.

Do any of these theories have anything useful to say for managing businesses? Well, if true, they suggest that

  • Not everyone is motivated by the same things. It depends where you are in the hierarchy (think of it as a kind of personal development scale) 
  • The needs hierarchy probably mirrors the organizational hierarchy to a certain extent: top managers are more likely to motivated by self-actualization/growth needs than existence needs. (but try telling Bill Clinton that top executives are not motivated by sex and cheeseburgers...)

Acquired Needs Theory (mcclellan)

Some needs are acquired as a result of life experiences

  • need for achievement, accomplish something difficult. as kids encouraged to do things for themselves.
  • need for affiliation, form close personal relationships. as kids rewarded for making friends.
  • need for power, control others. as kids, able to get what they want through controlling others.

Again similar to maslow and alderfer.

These needs can be measured using the TAT (thematic apperception test), which is a projection-style test based on interpreting stories that people tell about a set of pictures. 

Cognitive Evaluation Theory

This theory suggests that there are actually two motivation systems: intrinsic and extrinsic that correspond to two kinds of motivators:

  • intrinsic motivators:  Achievement, responsibility and competence. motivators that come from the actual performance of the task or job -- the intrinsic interest of the work.
  • extrinsic:  pay, promotion, feedback, working conditions -- things that come from a person's environment, controlled by others.

One or the other of these may be a more powerful motivator for a given individual.

Intrinsically motivated individuals perform for their own achievement and satisfaction. If they come to believe that they are doing some job because of the pay or the working conditions or some other extrinsic reason, they begin to lose motivation.

The belief is that the presence of powerful extrinsic motivators can actually reduce a person's intrinsic motivation, particularly if the extrinsic motivators are perceived by the person to be controlled by people. In other words, a boss who is always dangling this reward or that stick will turn off the intrinsically motivated people.

Note that the intrinsic motivators tend to be higher on the Maslow hierarchy.

Two Factor theory (Herzberg)

According to Herzberg, two kinds of factors affect motivation, and they do it in different ways:

  • hygiene factors. These are factors whose absence motivates, but whose presence has no perceived effect. They are things that when you take them away, people become dissatisfied and act to get them back. A very good example is heroin to a heroin addict. Long term addicts do not shoot up to get high; they shoot up to stop being sick -- to get normal.  Other examples include decent working conditions, security, pay, benefits (like health insurance), company policies, interpersonal relationships. In general, these are extrinsic items low in the Maslow/Alderfer hierarchy.
  • motivators. These are factors whose presence motivates. Their absence does not cause any particular dissatisfaction, it just fails to motivate. Examples are all the things at the top of the Maslow hierarchy, and the intrinsic motivators.

So hygiene factors determine dissatisfaction, and motivators determine satisfaction. The two scales are independent, and you can be high on both.

If you think back to the class discussion on power, we talked about a baseline point on the well-being scale. Power involved a threat to reduce your well-being, causing dissatisfaction. Hence, power basically works by threatening to withhold hygiene factors. Influence was said to fundamentally be about promising improvements in well-being -- when you are influenced to do something, it is because you want to, not because you were threatened. Influence basically works by offering to provide motivators (in Herzberg's terms). 

Equity Theory

Suppose employee A gets a 20% raise and employee B gets a 10% raise. Will both be motivated as a result? Will  A be twice as motivated? Will be B be negatively motivated? 

Equity theory says that it is not the actual reward that motivates, but the perception, and the perception is based not on the reward in isolation, but in comparison with the efforts that went into getting it, and the rewards and efforts of others. If everyone got a 5% raise, B is likely to feel quite pleased with her raise, even if she worked harder than everyone else. But if A got an even higher raise, B perceives that she worked just as hard as A, she will be unhappy. 

In other words, people's motivation results from a ratio of ratios:  a person compares the ratio of reward to effort with the comparable ratio of reward to effort that they think others are getting. 

Of course, in terms of actually predicting how a person will react to a given motivator, this will get pretty complicated:

  1. People do not have complete information about how others are rewarded. So they are going on perceptions, rumors, inferences. 
  2. Some people are more sensitive to equity issues than others
  3. Some people are willing to ignore short-term inequities as long as they expect things to work out in the long-term. 

Reinforcement Theory

Operant Conditioning is the term used by B.F. Skinner to describe the effects of the consequences of a particular behavior on the future occurrence of that behavior. There are four types of Operant Conditioning: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment, and Extinction. Both Positive and Negative Reinforcement strengthen behavior while both Punishment and Extinction weaken behavior.

  • Positive reinforcement.  Strengthening a behavior. This is the process of getting goodies as a consequence of a behavior. You make a sale, you get a commission. You do a good job, you get a bonus & a promotion. 
  • Negative reinforcement. Strengthening a behavior. This is the process of having a stressor taken away as a  consequence of a behavior. Long-term sanctions are removed from countries when their human rights records improve. (you see how successful that is!). Low status as geek at Salomon Brothers is removed when you make first big sale.
  • Extinction. Weakening a behavior. This is the process of getting no goodies when do a behavior. So if person does extra effort, but gets no thanks for it, they stop doing it.
  • Punishment. Weakening a behavior. This is the process of getting a punishment as a consequence of a behavior. Example: having your pay docked for lateness. 

 

Apply

Withhold

Reward

positive reinforcement (raise above baseline)

negative reinforcement (raise up to baseline)

Stressor

punishment (bring down below baseline)

extinction (stay at baseline)

Reinforcement schedules. 

The traditional reinforcement schedule is called a continuous reinforcement schedule. Each time the correct behavior is performed it gets reinforced.

Then there is what we call an intermittent reinforcement schedule. There are fixed and variable categories.

The Fixed Interval Schedule is where reinforcement is only given after a certain amount of time has elapsed. So, if you decided on a 5 second interval then each reinforcement would occur at the fixed time of every 5 seconds.

The Fixed Ratio Schedule is where the reinforcement is given only after a predetermined number of responses. This is often seen in behavior chains where a number of behaviors have to occur for reinforcement to occur.

The Variable Interval Schedule is where the reinforcement is given after varying amounts of time between each reinforcement.

The Variable Ratio Schedule is where the reinforcement is given after a varying number of correct responses.

Fluctuating combinations of primary and secondary reinforcers fall under other terms in the variable ratio schedule; For example, Reinforcers delivered Intermittently in a Randomized Order (RIR) or Variable Ratio with Reinforcement Variety (VRRV).

 

 

Fixed

Variable

Interval

give reward after first proper response following a specified time period

(yearly raise)

[short term]

give reward after a certain amt of time w/ the amt changing before the next reward

(unexpected bonus based on merit)

[medium term]

Ratio

punishment (subtract from baseline)

(commissions or piecework pay)

[medium term]

give reward after a number of responses, w/ that no. changing before the next reward

(team-based bonus)

[long term]

 

Expectancy Theory (Vroom)

This theory is meant to bring together many of the elements of previous theories. It combines the perceptual aspects of equity theory with the behavioral aspects of the other theories. Basically, it comes down to this "equation":

M = E*I*V

or

motivation = expectancy * instrumentality * valence

M (motivation) is the amount a person will be motivated by the situation they find themselves in. It is a function of the following.

E (expectancy) = The person's perception that effort will result in performance. In other words, the person's assessment of the degree to which effort actually correlates with performance.

I (instrumentality) = The person's perception that performance will be rewarded/punished. I.e., the person's assessment of how well the amount of reward correlates with the quality of performance. (Note here that the model is phrased in terms of extrinsic motivation, in that it asks 'what are the chances I'm going to get rewarded if I do good job?'. But for intrinsic situations, we can think of this as asking 'how good will I feel if I can pull this off?').

V(valence) = The perceived strength of the reward or punishment that will result from the performance. If the reward is small, the motivation will be small, even if expectancy and instrumentality are both perfect (high).

 

 

 

 

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Believe in Your Dreams