Four elements of culture-specific verbal communication styles

a) Direct and indirect communication: . Direct communication - people say what they mean and mean what they say, less need to imply and read between the lines, yes means yes. Communication is speaker oriented (responsibility for conveying a message lies with the speaker). Communication tends to be linear, analytical, objective, rational. Time is limited commodity (importance of schedules and deadlines). Indirect communication – people don’t always say what they mean or mean exactly what they say, more need to imply and read between lines; yes may mean maybe or even no. communication is listener oriented (responsibility for interpreting a message lies with the listener). Communication tends to be nonliener, intuitive, subjective, synthetic. Time is bent to meet the need of people (schedules and deadlines often are changed)
b) Formal and informal communication: Formal communication – stress on formal language, titles, honorifics. Stress on inequality in social relations 9social status), stress on collectivism (we oriented). Informal communication – minimize formal language, titles, honorifics, stress on equality in social relations (egalitarianism), stress on individualism (I oriented)
c) Emotional and non-emotional communication:

d) Elaborate and succinct communication:. Elaborate communication – stress on rich expressive language and the art of speech and debate; tend to see succinct communication as lacking of emotions, engagement, sincerity, and conversational skills. Succinct communication – stress on simple assertions, understatement, indirection and silence; tend to see elaborate communication as lacking in objectivity, consistency, sincerity and intellectual rigor.

III. MOTIVATION THEORIES

1. What are the five categories of motivational needs described by Maslow? Give an example of how each can be satisfied.

Answer 1.1.

The core of Maslow’s theory of human motivation is a hierarchy of five need categories. He focused his theoretical attention on specifying people’s internal needs. Maslow labeled the five hierarchical categories as:

1) physiological needs

2) safety and security needs

3) love (social) needs

4) esteem needs

5) the need for self- actualization

One distinguishing feature of Maslow’s need hierarchy is the following progression hypothesis. The theory says that only ungratified (unsatisfied) needs motivate behavior. As one level of need is met, a person progresses to the next higher level of need as a source of motivation. Therefore, people progress up in the hierarchy as they successively gratify each level of need.

Answer 1.2. Give an example of how each can be satisfied.

Maslow's theory suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs.

1) Physiological needs - are the physical requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first.

Physiological needs can be satisfied with:

ü Air, water, and food, since they are metabolic requirements for humans' survival.

ü Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements; Amount of sleep

ü Sexual competition may also shape the physiological instinct.

2) Safety and security needs- These are the needs connected with the psychological fear of loss of job, property, natural disasters etc. An employee wants protection from such types of fear.

They can be satisfied in ways such as: procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, protection from physical danger, security of job, pension for old age, insurance cover for life, saving accounts etc.

3) Love (social) needs- An employee is a human being is rightly treated as a social animal. He desires to stay in group. He feels that he should belong to one or the other group and the member of the group should accept him with love and affection.In order to satisfy social needs employee needs:

ü To feel that he is loved by the other members of the group

ü Friendly coworkers

ü Interaction with customers

ü Pleasant supervisor

4) Esteem needs- This category of needs include the need to be respected by others, need to be appreciated by others, need to have power and finally prestigious position.

The Organization can satisfy these needs by:

ü Giving recognition to the good work of employees

ü Provide them some rewards or bonuses for a good work

ü Promote to higher status job

ü Give responsibilities for an important work

5) The need for self- actualization- This is the highest among the needs in the hierarchy of needs advocated by Maslow. Self actualization is the desire to become what one is capable of becoming. Here, a person feels that he should accomplish something in his life. He wants to use his potentials to the maximum extent and desires to become what one is capable of becoming.

To satisfy it the employer should provide:

ü Creative and challenging tasks. For example, work over new project

ü Job flexibility and autonomy

2. What are the Theory X and Theory Y assumptions about people at work? How do they relate to the hierarchy of needs?

Answers 2.1. and 2.2 together:

Douglas McGregor understood people’s motivation using the Maslow’s need theory. He grouped:

ü The physiological and safety needs as “lower order” needs

ü The social, esteem and self-actualization needs as “upper order” needs.

McGregor proposed two alternative sets of assumptions, called Theory X and Theory Y, about people at work based on which set of needs were the motivators.

Theory X is a set of assumptions of how to manage individuals who are motivated by lower order needs. These people are by nature lazy and want to work as little as possible, they have a lack of ambition, prefer to be led and indifferent to organizational needs.

Theory Y is a set of assumptions of how to manage individuals who are motivated by higher order needs. These people are not by nature passive or resistant to organizational needs. They are responsible, have a potential for development and ready to work in order to achieve personal and organizational goals.

3. Discuss three categories of human basic needs as proposed by ERG theory.

Clayton Alderfer proposed the ERG theory of motivation, which groped human needs into 3 basic categories: existence, relatedness and growth. These groups align with the levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

1) The "existence" needs describe our basic material requirements for living.

2) The "relatedness" needs concern the maintaining of important interpersonal relationships.

3) The "growth" needs relate to self-actualization and self-esteem.

Even though the priority of these needs differ from person to person, Alberger's ERG theory prioritises in terms of the categories' 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.

Alderfer also proposed that if an individual's needs in a certain category are not met, then they will redouble their efforts toward fulfilling needs in a lower category.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 1777