The following assignment is an example of my EAP 507 class. It is a reading response paper which required us to write a analytical summary after reading an academic article. At the beginning, it is a little difficult for me because I never did it before. It is more academic than the assignment I wrote before, so I received many comments from professors. They told me how to make the connection between the author’s ideas and my ideas, and how to work on the analysis of key concepts which is a critical skill for me in business management. I revised the paper two times, so I got a good grade finally. Therefore, this assignment is the beginning of entering to a more academic field.
An Analytical Summary of Applelbaum et al (2005)
In Applelbaum et al’s (2005) case study, they tried to find out the influence of employees’ satisfaction and the correlation between satisfaction and productivity through a series of hypotheses. Applelbaum et al. (2005) pointed out that the productivity could be increased by employees with advanced equipment and technical training; however, the company was still suffering problem of low productivity. Therefore, Applelbaum et al. (2005) identified a significant factor – employee satisfaction and wanted to determine the correlation between it and productivity. In the project, they did four hypotheses and different correlations between them, so they used the methodology of survey and interviews within the company. After finished these four hypotheses, they had a lot of new findings for each hypothesis. Applelbaum et al. (2005) pointed out that there was directly positive correlation between employee satisfaction and productivity. At the same time, poor communication contributed to low productivity, so the authors highlighted the importance of communication, teamwork and sharing information between employees (Appelbaum et al., 2005). Therefore, they suggested that the company could improve the productivity by concerning employee satisfaction, such as attachment, involvement and communication (Appelbaum et al., 2005).
One of the key concepts in Applelbaum et al’s (2005) case study is employee satisfaction, also known as job satisfaction, and the authors explained that “the way an employee feels about his or her job” is employee satisfaction (p. 3). In other word, an employee feels satisfied and happy about her/his job instead of complaining or negative attitude. Applelbaum et al. (2005) mentioned that “organization with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than organizations with less satisfied employees”. (p.3) Therefore, job satisfaction is a key element for a company. The authors developed the key concept to relate motivation and recognition. They claim that if the leaders don’t see employees’ efforts and reward their achievement, employees are not willing to pay too much attention to the company (Appelbaum et al., 2005, p.3). For example, if managers don’t give positive evaluations for the employees, the followers will not be satisfied with the company and complain that all of their efforts were in vain. They don’t have the motivation and involvement with the organization because they thought that the company and leaders don’t care about them at all. Therefore, the negative emotion and attitude with the company directly lead to low employee satisfaction. On the contrary, Applelbuam et al. (2005) found that “participation in the decision-making process which leads to job satisfaction and in turn results in higher motivation and increased productivity” (p.3). In addition, Applelbaum et al. (2005) developed the employee satisfaction with high salary and less work time. They mentioned that “plant employees expressed satisfaction with their wages” (p.7), and employees’ high satisfactions not come from job but from that they have enough time and money, which good salary and leaders bring with, to do something outside of their job. (Appelbaum et al., 2005, p.8) Therefore, high wage also contributes to high employee satisfaction.
The similarity between Luthans & Yousseff (2007), Liden, Wayne, Liao, & Meuser (2014), and Applelbaum et al’s (2005) projects is that they all researched the organizational behavior in the management field, and these organizational behaviors are positive. In addition, they tried to give some positive suggestions for the managers. These three articles also have some differences and relationships. Firstly, Luthans & Yousseff (2007) developed the key concept “positive organizational behavior” through other five elements: efficacy, hope, optimism, resiliency and psychological capital. One of the elements- efficacy and Applelbaum et al’s (2005) case study have some ideas in common. In Luthans & Youseff’s (2007) article, they developed the key concept -self efficacy with self-set goals and self-motivation. In other word, self-efficacy is one type of self-satisfaction. Also, Applebuam et al. (2005) developed the key concept productivity with employee satisfaction which is related to self-sattisfaction. Moreover, the concept “servant culture” of Liden et al’s (2014) project and the concept “corporate culture” of Applelbaum et al’s (2005) project have some related ideas; for example, they both payed attention to communication and highlighted the importance of teamwork. In this culture, the leaders create a harmonious working atmosphere, which is a positive and mutual assistance working environment. In my opinion, the differences between them are Liden et al (2014) apply the approaches for the leader level, but Appleeabum et al (2005) focused on employee level.