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Management can be defined as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of organizational resources (human, technical, informational, and financial) to effectively and efficiently achieve goals. This somewhat prescriptive definition implies people are a necessary resource in the production function. In other words, human capital is a means by which business organization create wealth. Managers typically work for owners of these profit seeking entities.
Therefore, it is correct for managers to view people as a resource: a "human resource" is a factor in the production function, used appropriately here, especially when a profit motive is the crux of the matter. Thus, managers must understand this key concept if they are to successfully manage people at work.
When managers reward or punishment employees for productive or unproductive behavior on the job they are applying the basic concepts of operant conditioning. Managers who remember their introductory psychology will remember Edward Lee Thorndike's Law of Effect. It holds, a stimulus that annoys the animal will "stamp-out" behaviors associated with that stimulus and a stimulus that benefits the animal will "stamp-in" behaviors associated with that stimulus.
Informed managers know that human beings are subject to this law of effect. Furthermore, managers who reward behaviors they deem productive and punish behaviors they deem unproductive are attempting to condition their employees. And, employees' workplace behaviors can be stamped-in or stamped-out based on the managerial system of rewards and punishments. Inappropriately applying rewards and punishment is not without drawbacks.
Atwater, Waldman, Carey, and Cartier (2001) conducted a qualitative study of data collected from 123 recipients and 46 observers, all interviewed. They found, although punishment can be positively perceived, recipients and observers of oral or written reprimands may lose respect for the discipliner. In addition, negative attitudes toward the organization might also emerge as a result of discipline not being applied formally according to rules. Since it is a common industry practice requiring managers to reprimand an employee's unproductive behavior, there is face validity to this common managerial communication practice of reprimanding employee behavior.
Furthermore, managers' reprimanding employees can significantly raise the blood pressures of their intended recipients, especially when the messages are perceived to be threatening (Taylor, Fieldman, & Lahlou, 2005). And, we now know when women and men discipline their male employees differently...