Homework answers / question archive / HRM300 Organizational Behavior Chapter Eight Learning and Decision Making Learning Goals • What is learning, and how does it affect decision making? • What types of knowledge can employees gain as they learn and build expertise? cracked • What are the methods by which employees learn in organizations? • What two methods can employees use to make decisions? • What decision-making problems can prevent employees from translating their learning into accurate decisions? • How does learning affect job performance and organizational commitment? • What steps can organizations take to foster learning? Learning and Decision Making • Learning reflects relatively permanent changes in an employee’s knowledge or skill that result from experience

HRM300 Organizational Behavior Chapter Eight Learning and Decision Making Learning Goals • What is learning, and how does it affect decision making? • What types of knowledge can employees gain as they learn and build expertise? cracked • What are the methods by which employees learn in organizations? • What two methods can employees use to make decisions? • What decision-making problems can prevent employees from translating their learning into accurate decisions? • How does learning affect job performance and organizational commitment? • What steps can organizations take to foster learning? Learning and Decision Making • Learning reflects relatively permanent changes in an employee’s knowledge or skill that result from experience

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HRM300 Organizational Behavior Chapter Eight Learning and Decision Making Learning Goals • What is learning, and how does it affect decision making? • What types of knowledge can employees gain as they learn and build expertise? cracked • What are the methods by which employees learn in organizations? • What two methods can employees use to make decisions? • What decision-making problems can prevent employees from translating their learning into accurate decisions? • How does learning affect job performance and organizational commitment? • What steps can organizations take to foster learning? Learning and Decision Making • Learning reflects relatively permanent changes in an employee’s knowledge or skill that result from experience. • The more employees learn, the more they bring to the table when they come to work. • Decision making refers to the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem. • The more knowledge and skills employees possess, the more likely they are to make accurate and sound decisions. • Expertise refers to the knowledge and skills that distinguish experts from novices and less experienced people. Discussion Questions • What does the term “expert” mean to you? • What exactly do experts do that novices don’t? Types of Knowledge • Explicit knowledge is the kind of information you are likely to think about when you picture someone sitting down at a desk to learn. • Relatively easily communicated. • Information that can be communicated verbally or in writing • Tacit knowledge is what employees can typically learn only through experience. • Up to 90 percent of the knowledge contained in organizations occurs in tacit form. Table 8-1 Characteristics of Explicit and Tacit Knowledge Questions: • Lucy just moved to New York on a job assignment. Lucy got herself a map of the city and various other guides on restaurants, fitness centers, libraries, and theaters. Lucy learns about New York by studying these materials. Lucy acquires _____ knowledge by learning this way. A. Tacit B. Explicit • Which of the following is a characteristic of tacit knowledge? A. Tacit knowledge is based on experience B. Tacit knowledge can be learned through books C. Tacit knowledge is easily transferred through written communication Methods of Learning • We learn through reinforcement (rewards and punishment), observation, and experience. • Reinforcement – The process whereby a behavior with desirable consequences comes to be repeated • Operant conditioning says that we learn by observing the link between our voluntary behavior and the consequences that follow it. Contingencies of Reinforcement • There are four specific consequences typically used by organizations to modify employee behavior, known as the contingencies of reinforcement Contingencies of Reinforcement • Two contingencies used to increase desired behaviors: • Positive reinforcement occurs when a positive outcome follows a desired behavior. • Most common type of reinforcement • Increased pay, promotion • Negative reinforcement occurs when an unwanted outcome is removed following a desired behavior. • Perform a task to not get yelled at Contingencies of Reinforcement, Cont’d • Two contingencies used to decrease undesired behaviors: • Punishment occurs when an unwanted outcome follows an unwanted behavior. • Suspension, firing • Extinction occurs when there is the removal of a consequence following an unwanted behavior. • Stop laughing at off-color jokes Positive reinforcement and extinction should be the most common forms of reinforcement used by managers to create learning among their employees. Schedules of Reinforcement • Continuous reinforcement is the simplest schedule of reinforcement and happens when a specific consequence follows each and every occurrence of a desired behavior. • Fixed interval schedule is where workers are rewarded after a certain amount of time, and the length of time between reinforcement periods stays the same. • Variable interval schedules are designed to reinforce behavior at more random points in time. Learning Through Observation • Social learning theory argues that people in organizations have the ability to learn through the observation of others. • Behavioral modeling happens when employees observe the actions of others, learn from what they observe, and then repeat the observed behavior. Figure 8-3 The Modeling Process Decision Making •Decision making refers to the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem. Methods of Decision Making • Programmed decisions are decisions that become somewhat automatic because a person’s knowledge allows him or her to recognize and identify a situation and the course of action that needs to be taken. Methods of Decision Making, Cont’d • When a situation arises that is new, complex and not recognized, it calls for a nonprogrammed decision on the part of the employee. • As employees move up the corporate ladder, a larger percentage of their decisions become less and less programmed. • Rational decision-making model offers a step-by-step approach to making decisions that maximize outcomes by examining all available alternatives. Figure 8-4 Programmed and Nonprogrammed Decisions Decision-Making Problems • Limited Information • Bounded rationality is the notion that decision makers simply do not have the ability or resources to process all available information and alternatives to make an optimal decision. • Satisficing results when decision makers select the first acceptable alternative considered. Decision-Making Problems, Cont’d • Faulty Perceptions • Selective perception is the tendency for people to see their environment only as it affects them and as it is consistent with their expectations. • Faulty Perceptions, Cont’d • Projection bias is the belief that others think, feel, and act the same way they do. • Stereotype occurs when people make assumptions about others on the basis of their membership in a social group. Decision-Making Problems, Cont’d • Escalation of commitment refers to the decision to continue to follow a failing course of action. • People have a tendency, when presented with a series of decisions, to escalate their commitment to previous decisions, even in the face of obvious failures. Figure 8-6 Why Do Some Employees Learn to Make Decisions Better than Others? Learning • Learning does influence job performance. • It is moderately correlated with job performance. • Learning is only weakly related to organizational commitment. • Having higher levels of job knowledge is associated with slight increases in emotional attachment to the firm. Figure 8-7 Effects of Learning on Performance and Commitment Application: Training • Training represents a systematic effort by organizations to facilitate the learning of job-related knowledge and behavior. • Organizations spent more than $150 billion on employee learning and development in 2014, or $1,208 per employee. • Knowledge transfer is the transfer of knowledge from older, experienced workers to younger employees. Knowledge Transfer • Behavior modeling training ensures that employees have the ability to observe and learn from those in the company with significant amounts of tacit knowledge. • Communities of practice are groups of employees who work together and learn from one another by collaborating over an extended period of time. • Transfer of training occurs when the knowledge, skills, and behaviors used on the job are maintained by the learner once training ends and generalized to the workplace once the learner returns to the job. • Transfer of training can be fostered if organizations create a climate for transfer —an environment that can support the use of new skills. Takeaways • Learning is a relatively permanent change in an employee’s knowledge or skill that results from experience. Decision making refers to the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem. Learning allows employees to make better decisions by making those decisions more quickly and by being able to generate a better set of alternatives. • Employees gain both explicit and tacit knowledge as they build expertise. Explicit knowledge is easily communicated and available to everyone. Tacit knowledge, however, is something employees can only learn through experience. Takeaways, Cont’d • Employees learn new knowledge through reinforcement and observation of others. That learning also depends on whether the employees are learning-oriented or performance-oriented. • Programmed decisions are decisions that become somewhat automatic because a person’s knowledge allows him or her to recognize and identify a situation and the course of action that needs to be taken. Many task-related decisions made by experts are programmed decisions. Nonprogrammed decisions are made when a problem is new, complex, or not recognized. Ideally, such decisions are made by following the steps in the rational decision-making model. Takeaways, Cont’d • Employees are less able to translate their learning into accurate decisions when they struggle with limited information, faulty perceptions, faulty attributions, and escalation of commitment. • Learning has a moderate positive relationship with job performance and a weak positive relationship with organizational commitment. • Through various forms of training, companies can give employees more knowledge and a wider array of experiences that they can use to make decisions. Running head: Kuwait 3D Lab 1 Introduction to Kuwait 3D Lab My group is starting a company called Kuwait 3D Lab which specializes in CNC milling, or computer numerical control milling. Is a machining process that includes a multi-point rotating cutting tool that rotates and cuts material from a workpiece progressively to remove material from it to produce a custom-designed model or product (Ronquillo, n.d.) Which means, that our consumer must present us with a 3D model. We format it in our machine and according to our consumer, we use the material he or she wants the model to be made out of. Then, the machine starts milling or cutting. Like 3D printing. Except, we don't produce your models in plastic, we use metals instead like aluminum, steel, brass, titanium, and many more. This means companies like aerospace and aviation industries, military and defense, oil industry, and electronics industry. All these industries need CNC milling to produce their products, machines, resources, and many more. Why is our company important? Why is CNC important in Kuwait? Firstly, there are no CNC companies in Kuwait and we would be the first one to establish that. Secondly, being a local company would be less complicated than demanding another CNC milling company from outside the country to machine the models for you; because you wouldn't have face-to-face communication with the person in charge of producing your model, and there are multiple barriers when it comes to online communication. Like the time zone; therefore, responses can be late and communication is long and chances of misunderstanding are higher. So, if ever your model has flaws, you'd face more issues. In conclusion, having a local CNC milling company in Kuwait means we'd create more KUWAIT 3D LAB 2 effective communication between us and our consumers, and make it much easier for companies to mass produce models for their products. Who are our competitors? Our competitors include a variety of CNC milling companies outside of Kuwait. For example, ProtoLabs, 3DHubs, Xeometry, and many more. All of them perform similarly, they receive 3D models from consumers and produce them in the desired material of the consumer, and set a base price for producing that material. What makes your company different from other companies? Our CNC milling company would stand out from the rest because unlike other CNC milling companies, they have a very limited list of materials to use to produce your model. Mostly aluminum, brass, and steel. However, for Kuwait 3D Lab we use a variety of materials like aluminum, brass, steel, titanium, polycarbonate, stainless steel, carbon steel, and any allowed materials. Making us more optional for our consumers because we have more materials on the list. How employees are treated in our workspace CNC milling is an engineer's job. And it is a very long-process task to producing materials for our consumers that can take many hours and can be physically and mentally demanding on the worker. So, employees and need to stay healthy and physically fit for the job. Firstly, we would give our employees regular break times to take a breath from their tasks. Secondly, we want our employees to have an affective and continuance commitment to the company (Colquitt et al., 2019). To achieve affective commitment, we are going to synergize all our employees into one whole team. Learn about each other, get to know each other, develop a deeper bond to work together, and always work together when problems arise. And for KUWAIT 3D LAB 3 continuance commitment, we will work with the benefits of employees. Like bonus salaries, or any other efforts and rewards that come when employees do an exceptional job in the company. References Ronquillo, R. (n.d.). Understanding CNC Milling. Retrieved from https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/custom-manufacturing-fabricating/understanding-cncmilling/. Colquitt, J., LePine, J., & Wesson, M. (2019). Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace. (6th ed). McGraw-Hill