Week 1 (intro)

 Individual who achieve goals through: human, technical and conceptual skills.
 Organisation as a system:

 OB model: Stage 1: understanding, predicting and influencing (individual, group to

organisation systems)
 Independent variables:
1. individual level: personality and emotions, values, attitudes, ability
2. group level: group structure and dynamics, work teams, leadership & trust,
conflict and power
3. organizational level: organizational culture, structure and HR policies and
practices.
 Dependent variables:
1. Productivity: performance measure – effectiveness & efficiency
2. Job satisfaction: general attitude toward one’s job (amount of rewards)
3. Organizational citizenship behaviour (not part of formal job requirement)
4. Stress: exceed their ability to cope
5. Employee wellbeing: mental, social and physical health
6. Deviant workplace behaviour (violates norms)
7. Absenteeism: failure to report to work
8. Turnover
 Challenges for managers: responding to globalization, improve quality &
productivity, increase customer service and people skills, empowering people, work
and life balance.

Week 2 (personality & values)

 Personality traits: enduring characteristics that describe individual’s behaviour
 Myers-Briggs Type indicator: taps four characteristics
1. Extroverted & introverted
2. Sensing & intuitive
3. Thinking & feeling
 4. Judging & perceiving
 Big Five Model of Personality
1. Extroversion (sociable and assertive)
2. Agreeableness (cooperative & trust)
3. Conscientiousness (responsible, dependable & organized)
4. Emotional stability
5. Openness to experience
 Personality and Job-Fit: identify six personality types and proposes that fit between
personality type & occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover
 Major personality attributes influencing OB
1. Core self-evaluation: self-esteem (liking or disliking themselves); locus of
control (degree to which people believe they are master of their fate)
2. Machiavellianism
3. Narcissism
4. Risk taking (high/low managers; risk propensity: aligning to job
requirements)
5. Type A vs. Type B (fast/no sense of time urgency; two at one time/for fun)
6. Proactive personality (identify opportunity, shows initiative and act; create
positive change in environment)
 Value system: a hierarchy based on ranking of individual’s values in terms of their
intensity.
 Influence of values on OB: provide understanding of attitudes, motivation; influence
our perception of world, represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”

Week 3 (emotions & stress, well-being)

 Affects: feelings that people experience
 Emotions
1. Biology of emotions: brain’s limbic system
2. Intensity of emotions: personality & job requirement
3. Frequency and duration of emotions (how often and how long)
4. Functions of emotions (moral, rational and ethical)
 Emotional labour: effort, planning and control needed to express organisationally
desired emotions during interpersonal transactions
 Felt emotions: actual emotions; displayed emotions: organisationally required and
considered appropriate in each job
 Applications of emotions: selection, motivation, customer service, leadership, job
attitudes, interpersonal conflict, deviant workplace behaviour
 Stress: mismatch between demands and resources, perceptual process
 Work stress process
  stressors: causes of stress:
1. hindrance stressor: interfere with ability to achieve goals
2. challenge stressors: potentially but offer opportunity for growth
(leadership responsibility)
 contingency factors: stress disruptors:
1. individual differences
2. job-related resources: support, control and recognition
3. non-work-related resources
 problem-focused coping & emotion-focused coping
 individual recovery approach: time-management, physical exercise, social
support networks, stress management training
 organisational recovery approach: personnel selection and job placement,
training, realistic goal setting, increase employee involvement and organisational
communication
 stress consequence: individual, organisational and societal
 wellbeing is an individual’s positive perception of their sense of purpose
 psychological capital: positive psychological state of development.
1. Hope: persevering towards goals
2. Optimism: ability to make positive attributes about success
3. self-efficacy: confidence to take on at challenging tasks
4. resilience: ability to rebound when faced with negative outcome

Week 4 (perception & attitudes)

 perception is a process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory
impressions to give meaning to their environment
 attribution theory: when individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine
whether it is internally or externally caused
1. distinctiveness: different behaviours in different situations (HE and LI)
 2. consensus: response is the same as others to same situation
3. responds in the same way over time (HI and LE)
 errors and biases in attributions:
1. fundamental attribution error: tendency to underestimate influence of
external factors and overestimate influence of internal factors
2. self-serving bias: tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to
internal factors while putting blame for failures on external factors
 shortcuts in judging others
1. selective perception: people selectively interpret what they see on basis of
interests, background, experience and attitudes
2. projection: one’s own characteristics to other people
3. halo effect: drawing a general impression about individual on basis of single
characteristic
4. contrast effect: evaluation that are affected by comparisons with others.
5. Stereotyping: on basis of one’s perception
 Common biases: anchoring (early first received Infor), confirmation (facts support
our decision), availability (information most readily at hand)
 More common: escalation of commitment, escalation randomness error, hindsight
bias (believe that you predicted the outcome)
 Attitudes: evaluative statements or judgements concerning objects, people or event
1. Cognitive component: opinion or belief segment
2. Affective component: emotional
3. Behavioural component: intention to behave in a certain way toward
something
 Attitude predict behaviour
 Job satisfaction: positive feeling resulting from positive evaluation of characteristics
and rewards: job content, supervisor, career progress, pay, working condition.
 Job satisfaction and performance:
1. Job performance and productivity
2. Absenteeism & turnover (satisfied employees have fewer absences)
3. Workplace deviance
4. OCB (treated fairly and trust of organisation are more engaging)
5. Pay influence job satisfaction only to a point
6. Personality (positive core self-evaluation)
Week 5 (groups & teams)
 5 stage group development model:
1. forming: members feel much uncertainty
2. storming: conflict between group members
3. norming: members develop close relationships and cohesiveness
4. performing: group is fully functional
5. adjourning: group concerned with wrapping up activities
 group properties
1. roles: set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to occupying given
position. Role perception/expectation/conflict
2. norms: acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared by
group members. Classes of norms: performance, appearance, social
arrangement, allocation of resources
3. status: socially defined position or rank – it differentiates group members and
to understand behaviours. Status is derived from power, ability to contribute
to group goals and personal characteristics
4. size: tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively
than when working individually
5. cohesiveness: degree to which group members are attracted to each other
6. diversity: degree to which member of group are similar to or different from.
Benefits: enhance creativity & open-mindedness. Drawbacks: increase group
conflict, lower group morale, raises dropout rates
 group decision making:
1. strengths: more complete information, diversity of views, higher quality of
decisions, acceptance of solutions
2. weaknesses: time consuming, increase pressure, domination by a few
members
  team – a group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than
sum of individual input
 key roles on teams: advisor, linker, creator, maintainer, controller, producer,
organizer, assessor, promoter.
 Creating effective teams:
1. Context: adequate resources to complete job, effective leadership and
structure, member must trust each other, performance and rewards systems
that reflect team contributions.
2. Composition: abilities and personalities, roles and diversity, size and
flexibility, preference for teamwork
3. Process: create common purpose, team goals, team belief, mental map of
how work gets down, manage level of conflict.
 Why teams: outperform individuals, employee talents more effectively, more flexible
and responsive, facilitate employee involvement, motivation.

Week 6 (motivation)
 Individuals’ Intensity (how hard are we going to try), direction (will you help or
hinder), persistence (how long will you try)
 Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory: satisfaction and dissatisfaction are separate construct
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: intrinsic (self-actualisation, esteem) and extrinsic
(physiological)
 McClellan’s Theory of Needs: achievement, affiliation (close personal relationship),
power
 Self-Determination Theory (SDT): extrinsic and intrinsic (autonomy: exert and
control, competence: have mastery over tasks, relatedness: sense of belongings)
 Goal-setting theory: specific and difficult goals, with self-generated feedback lead to
higher performance. It depends on “I want to do & I can do”, goal commitment, task
characteristics, national culture.
 Goals and self-efficacy (feeling that they can do task)
 Equity theory: individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of
others and then respond to eliminate any inequities
 Organisational justice: overall perception of what is fair in the workplace
1. Distributive justice: perceived fairness of outcome (pay raise I deserved)
2. Procedural justice: fairness of process used to determine outcome (good
explanation of why I received the raise I did)
3. Interactional justice: perceived degree to which one is treated with dignity
and respect (supervisor was nice when telling me about my raise)
 Expectancy theory:
Individual effort – individual performance – organisational rewards – personal goals
 Applying expectancy theory:
  Expectancy theory ensure valued rewards are available, ensure employees believe
they can do job and ensure performance is clearly linked to valued rewards
 Goal setting theory outlines the path to performance. Individuals will compare their
results to themselves and other (equity theory) to determine if rewards are
appropriate and fair. Needs theory can explain whether the rewards have value
 Job characteristics model:
1. Skill variety – how many different skills are used
2. Task identity – completion of work from start to finish
3. Task significance – impact on work or lives of others
4. Autonomy – deciding work procedures and scheduling
5. Feedback – effective completion of work is clear

 Implications for managers: recognise individual differences, use goals and feedback,
allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them, link rewards to
performance and check system for equity

Week 7 (leadership)
 Leadership: ability to influence group toward achievement of goals
 Approach to leadership:
1. trait (personality traits of leaders): better at predicting leader emergence
than effectiveness
2. behavioural (effectiveness of leader behaviours and styles)
3. situational/contingency (interaction between traits/skills/styles and the
situation): environment or context
4. contemporary (transactional or transformational outcome)
 Fiedler’s theory: task-oriented and relationship-oriented. Effectiveness depends on
match between leadership style and degree to which situation gives leader control
1. Leader-member relations: confidence and trust
2. Task structure: structure in the jobs
3. Position power: formal staffing authority
4. Positives: considerable evidence supports model, especially if original eight
situations are grouped into three
5. Problems: scores are not stable, contingency variables are complex and hard
to determine
 Situational leadership theory (Hersey & Blanchard): follower readiness
1. Followers can accept or reject leader
2. Effectiveness depends on followers’ response to leader’s actions
3. Readiness – people have ability and willingness to accomplish task
4. Assumes leaders can change style to fit followers’ degree of readiness in
terms of task maturity (ability & experience) and psychological maturity
(willingness to take responsibility)

 House’s Path-Goal theory: leader clarify path and provide information, support and
resources
  Leadership types: directive (focus on work to be done), supportive (well-being),
participative (consults in decision-making), achievement-oriented (set challenging
goals)
 Environmental contingency factors: task structure, formal authority system, work
group. Subordinate contingency factors: locus of control, experience, ability.
 Leader-member exchange theory: the importance of different relationships between
supervisors and their subordinates
1. In groups: members are similar to leader, inner circle of communication,
receives more time and attention, greater responsibility and rewards
2. Out groups: managed by formal rules and policies, less attention, more likely
to retaliate against the organisation
 Transactional: contingent reward, management by exception (active & passive)
 Transformational: idealised influence, inspirational motivation, individualised
consideration)

Week 8 (power)
 Source of dependency: importance, scarcity, substitutability
 Source of power:
1. Formal: established by individual’s position
 Legitimate power – formal control based on position
 Coercive power – dependency through fear of negative outcomes
 Reward power – control over valuable rewards
2. Personal: by individual’s characteristics
 Expert power – based on special skills or knowledge
 Referent power – inter-personal style

 Power tactics: why in which individuals translate power bases into specific action
1. Rational persuasion
2. Inspirational appeals – emotional blackmail
3. Consultation – they can’t disagree with themselves
4. Legitimacy – don’t you know who I am?
5. Exchange – quid pro quo
6. Personal appeals – please…
7. Coalitions - we are one, yet we are many
8. Ingratiation – you are so pretty!
9. Impression management (conformity, excuses, apologies, self-promotion)
10. Pressure – don’t you know what I will do to you?
 Factors influencing power tactics: sequencing of tactics – softer to harder work
better. Political skill of user, culture of organisation.
 Political behaviour: (result of resource scarcity)
 1. Legitimate: normal everyday politics – complaining, bypassing, obstructing
2. Illegitimate: extreme political behaviour that violates implied rues –
sabotage, whistle-blowing, symbolic protest
 Making connections:
1. Personality – type A
2. Values – terminal/instrumental, power distance
3. Motivation – job autonomy, empowerment
4. Emotions – stress, emotional intelligence
5. Leadership – position, style, trust

Week 9 (conflict & negotiation)

 Process that begins when one party perceived another party has or will negatively
affect something the first party cares about
 Conflicts: incompatibility of goals, differences over interpretations of facts,
disagreements based on behaviour expectations
 Types of interactionist conflict
1. Task conflict: work content and goals, low-to-moderate levels are functional
2. Process conflict: how work gets down, low levels are functional
3. Relationship conflict: interpersonal relationships, always dysfunctional.

 Stage 1:
1. Communication: semantic difficulties, misunderstandings, noise in
communication channel
2. Structure: size, specialisation of jobs, leadership styles, reward systems,
degree of dependence between groups
3. Personal variables: personality, emotions, values
 Stage 2:
1. Conflict is defined – awareness by one or more parties of conditions
2. Felt conflict – emotions are expressed that impact strongly on eventual
outcome, e.g. anxiety, tenseness, frustration
 Stage 3: decisions to act in given way
1. Cooperativeness: attempting to satisfy the other party’s concerns
2. Assertiveness: attempting to satisfy one’s own concerns
  Stage 4:
1. Includes the statements, actions and reactions made by conflicting parties
2. A dynamic process of interaction
3. Conflict-intensity continuum
 Conflict management techniques
1. Conflict resolution: problem solving, expansion of resource, avoidance,
smoothing, compromise, authoritative command
2. Conflict stimulation: communication, bringing in outsiders, restructuring
organisation.
 Stage 5:
1. Functional: increase group performance and quality of decisions, stimulation
of creativity, encouragement of interest, creation of environment for self-
evaluation and change
2. Dysfunctional: development of discontent, reduced group effectiveness,
communication and group cohesiveness, infighting
 Negotiation distributive bargaining – dividing up fixed amount of resources in win-
lose situation
 Integrative bargaining – finding one or more settlements that can create win-win
 Negotiation process:
1. Preparation & planning: assess the goal
2. Definition of ground rule: decide where, when, how and then exchanging
3. Clarification and justification: original demands
4. Bargaining and problem solving: work out an agreement
5. Closure and implementation: formalising the agreement
 BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement); bottom line for negotiations
 Individual differences:
1. Personality traits: disagreeable introvert is best
2. Mood and emotion: ability to show anger – distributive; positive mood –
integrative
3. Gender

Week 10 (organisational culture)

 Characteristics: innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome/people/team
orientation, aggressiveness, stability
 Functions of organisational culture:
1. Define boundary between organisation and others
2. Convey sense of identity for its members
3. Sense-making and control mechanism for fitting employees
4. Facilitates generation of commitment
5. Enhances stability of social system
  Stories and legends: social prescription of desired behaviour: describe real people,
are assumed to be true, known throughout organisation
 Rituals (programmed routines: how visitors are greeted), ceremonies (planned
activities for an audience), language (words, phrases as cultural symbols)
 Physical structures and symbols: building structure, office design, logo and copyright
 Material symbols: acceptable attire, office size, executive perks (car parking)
 Level of organisational culture
1. Dominant culture – core values shared by majority of organisational member
2. Subcultures – mini-culture, defined by department designations
3. Counter cultures – opposed to dominant culture that provide surveillance
and critique, ethics.
 Strong culture – core values intensely held and widely shared, provide basis for
behavioural consistency: social control, social glue, improves sense making
 Issues with strong cultures:
1. Institutionalisation: it is valued for itself, not for the goods and services it
provides
2. Barrier to change: when culture’s values are not aligned with values
necessary for rapid change
3. Barrier to diversity: pressure on employees to conform
4. Barrier to acquisitions and mergers: destroy an otherwise successful merger
 Positive organisational cultures
1. Focus on discovering, sharing and building on strengths of employees
2. Reward more than punish
3. Praise and catch employees doing something right
4. Emphasise individual vitality and growth by helping employees learn
5. Spirituality culture: help employees find meaning and purpose of work,
develop and reach their full potential and deal with work-life conflicts
 Managers should adjust speech to cultural norms, listening more, avoid discussion of
controversial topics

Week 11 (organisational change)

 Forces for change: nature of workforce (diversity), technology, economic shocks,
competition, social trends and world politics
 Lewin’s 3-step change model
1. Unfreezing: change efforts to overcome pressures of both individual
resistance and group conformity
2. Refreezing: stabilising change intervention by balancing driving and
restraining forces
3. Driving forces: direct behaviour away from the status quo
 4. Restraining forces: hinder movement from existing equilibrium
 Kotter’s 8 –step model
 Create culture for change: has developed continuous capacity to adapt, achieved
shared visions, manages learning, communicates openly
 Implement change: organisation development – change methods that try to improve
organisational effectiveness and employee well-being. Action research – problem-
focused change process using employee involvement and data
 Responding to change: increase complexity (technology, globalisation, merges);
employee attitudes toward change critical factoring determining success
 Change readiness:
1. Individual level – employee’s overall evaluative judgement that is ready:
cognitive – belief that change is needed/have the capacity to success/positive
outcome. Affective – current and future-oriented positive affective response
2. Group/organisational level – social interaction processes
 Improving change readiness: emotions – secure willingness and commitment;
managers need to build change readiness including group-based interventions that
develop support positive beliefs and affect about change
 Structure characteristics:
1. Work specialisation - degree to which tasks in organisation are divided into
separate jobs
2. Departmentalisation - basis on which jobs are grouped together (by function,
product, geography, process, customer)
3. Chain of command - line of authority and reporting from top of organisation
to lowest echelon
4. Span of control - number of employee’s manager can direct (efficiently and
effectively)
5. Centralisation/Decentralisation - degree to which decision making
concentrated at single point in organisation
6. Formalisation - degree to which jobs within organisation are standardised
 Common structure types:
1. Simple – flexible and responsive to change, low departmentalisation, wide
spans of control, authority centralised in single person, little formalisation or
decentralisation
2. Bureaucracy – inflexible and cumbersome, highly specialised, formalised,
grouped by function, centralised authority chain of command, and narrow
spans of control
3. Matrix - inflexible and cumbersome, dual lines of authority and combines
functional and product departmentalisation
4. Virtual - flexible and responsive to change, small core organisation
outsources major business functions
 Overcoming resistance
 1. Build support and commitment using OD techniques: Education and
communicate logic behind change. Participation in decision process lessens
resistance. Counseling, therapy, or new-skills training. Implement change
fairly and consistently
2. Select/retain people with required level of change readiness
3. Restructuring
4. Manipulate and coerce likely to be effective only for short term

Short-answer question:
4. power and politics:
Power is relative to how dependent people are on the resource that a person in power
possesses. If someone possesses a valuable resource, they will likely have more power than
someone who does not. E.g. When I want something from you, then I am dependent on
you. And if you do not need much from me, then you have power over me. This is power-
dependency relationship.
The sources of dependency are importance, scarcity, substitutability.
 Rational persuasion includes using facts, data, and logical arguments to convince
someone in a valid reason.
 Inspirational appeals focus on values, emotions, and beliefs to gain support for a
request or course of action.
 Consultation refers to getting others to participate in the planning process,
making decision and encourage changes.
 Ingratiation refers to different ways of making others feel good about
themselves. (compliment)
 Personal appeal refers to friendship and loyalty. Personal appeals are most
effective with people who know and like you.
 Exchange refers to give-and-take in which someone does something for you, and
you do something for them in return.
 Coalition tactics refer to a group of individuals working together toward a
common goal to influence others. (Unions)
 Pressure refers to pushing someone to do what you want or else something
undesirable will occur. This often includes threats and frequent interactions until the
target agrees.  Pressure tactics are most effective when used in a crisis.
 Legitimating tactics occur when the appeal is based on legitimate or position
power. This tactic relies upon compliance with rules, laws, and regulations.
 Resistance: occurs when the influence target does not wish to comply with the
request and either passively or actively repels the influence attempt.
 Compliance: occurs when the target does not necessarily want to obey, but they
do.
 Commitment: occurs when the target not only agrees to the request but also
actively supports it as well.
Political behaviour: involves attempts by some to influence the behaviours of others and the
course of events in the organization in order to protect their self-interests, meet their own
needs, and advance their own goals.

Legitimate political behaviour is behaviour that is within an individual's authority, such as

complaining, bypassing, obstructing organisational policies.

Illegitimate political behaviour is behaviour that violate the implied rules of the game. E.g.
whistle-blowing sabotage, and symbolic protest.

5. conflict and negotiation:

Potential Opposition or Incompatibility

The first stage in the conflict process is the existence of conditions that allow conflict to
arise. it’s because of issues regarding communication, structure, or personal variables.
  Communication. Conflict can arise from semantic issues, misunderstanding, or noise
in the communication channel that hasn’t been clarified. (show up halfway)
 Structure. Conflict can arise based on the structure of a group of people who have to
work together.

 Personal variables. Conflict can arise if two people who work together just don’t
care for each other.

Cognition and Personalization

If it’s been determined that potential opposition or incompatibility exists and both parties
feel it, then conflict is developing.

Intentions

Intentions come between people’s perceptions and emotions and help those who are
involved in the potential conflict to decide to act in a way.

Behaviour

Behaviour is the stage where conflict becomes evident, as it includes the statements,
actions and reactions of the parties involved in the conflict.

Outcomes

Outcomes of a conflict can be either functional or dysfunctional: Functional: increase group

performance and quality of decisions, stimulation of creativity, encouragement of interest,
creation of environment for self-evaluation and change. Dysfunctional: development of
discontent, reduced group effectiveness, communication and group cohesiveness, infighting

Different forms of conflicts:

 Individual conflicts: Though generally conflict arises between two or more persons.
This happens when a person cannot reconcile amongst his competing goals or when
his behaviour is different from what is expected. There can be, thus, goal conflict and
role conflict.
 Interpersonal conflict: When conflict arises amongst people of different levels or
functional areas, it is called interpersonal conflict. (personality, values, diverse
background, perception of organisation)
 Intergroup conflict: When conflict arises amongst different groups in the
organisation, it results in intergroup conflict. When groups interact with each other
and differ in their opinions and thinking, conflict arises amongst them.
Conflict management techniques
 Conflict resolution (attack the problem not the person): problem solving (face-to-
face meeting to identify problems), expansion of resource (when scarcity to create
win-win solution), avoidance, smoothing, compromise (mutual solution),
authoritative command
 Conflict stimulation (provide a means to introduce radical change): communication,
bringing in outsiders (different backgrounds of those present members),
restructuring organisation.
Negotiation distributive bargaining – refers to a competitive negotiation strategy which is
used when the parties seek to distribute a fixed resource such as money, assets, etc.
between themselves. (maximum value for themselves)
Integrative bargaining – implies a collaborative negotiation strategy, in which parties seek a
win-win solution to settle the conflict (mutual acceptable solution)
(individual difference)

8. what is organizational behaviour:

organizational behaviour is a field of study that provides a set of tools that allow people to
understand, analyse and describe behaviour in organisations, and managers to improve,
enhance or change work behaviours so that individuals, groups and the whole organisation
can achieve the effectiveness and its goal. The three level of analysis of OB model is
individual, groups, and organisation.
At the individual level of analysis, organisational behaviour draws heavily upon psychology.
Individuals working in organisations are the building blocks for group formation and are
purposefully associated with organisation. They are different in nature. The individual level
analyse includes the characteristics and behaviours of employees and the thought processes
that are attributed to them, e.g. motivation, perception and personality.
The group level of analysis depends on the sociological and socio-psychology. A group is
defined as two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who will work together to
achieve the same objective. Group level analysis focuses at the way people interact, which
includes group dynamics, decisions, power, organisational politics, conflict etc.
The organisational level analysis depends on anthropology and political science. When
groups are combined, they create an organisation. The focus of analysis at this level is on
how people structure their working relationships and how organisations interact with their
external environment forces, e.g. organisational culture, structure and development.
The dependent variable is the outcome or perceived outcome. A dependent variable is the key
factor that is explained or predicted by some other (independent) factor.
In case the organisational behaviour, the dependent variable, turnover and job satisfaction can
be predicted by the individual’s personality and values and whether they will fit in the job.
Composition
In this section, we will address the ability and personality of team members, allocating
roles and diversity, size of the team, member flexibility, and members’ preference for
teamwork.
Abilities of members
To perform effectively, a team requires three different types of skills.
First, it needs people with technical expertise.
Second, it needs people with problem-solving and decision-making skills to be able to
identify problems, generate alternatives, evaluate those alternatives, and make
competent choices and other interpersonal skills.
Personality
Personality has a significant influence on individual employee behaviour.
Many of the dimensions identified in the Big Five personality model
Specifically, teams that rate higher in means levels of extroversion, agreeableness,
consciousness, and emotional stability tend to receive higher managerial ratings for
team performance.
Allocating roles and diversity
Teams have different needs, and people should be selected for a team to ensure that
there is diversity and that all various roles are filled. Successful work teams have people
to fill all these roles and have selected people to play in these roles based on their skills
and preferences.
Member flexibility
Teams made up of flexible individuals have members who can complete each other’s’
tasks. This is an obvious plus to a team because it greatly improves its adaptability and
makes it less reliant on any single member.
Members’ preferences
When people who would prefer to work alone are required to team-up, there is a direct
threat to the team’s morale and to individual member satisfaction.
This suggests that, when selecting team members, individual preferences should be
considered as well as abilities, personalities, and skills.

Context
The four contextual factors that appear to be most significantly related to team
performance are the presence of adequate resources, effective leadership, a climate of
trust, and a performance evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
Adequate Resources
All work teams rely on resources outside the group to sustain it. And the scarcity of
resources directly reduces the ability of the team to perform its job effectively.
Leadership and Structure
Team members must agree on who is to do what and ensure that all members
contribute equally to sharing the workload. Agreeing on the specifics of work and how
they fit together to integrate individual skills requires team leadership and structure.
Climate of Trust
Members of effective teams trust each other. And they also exhibit trust in their leader’s
Interpersonal trust among team members facilitates cooperation, reduces the need to
monitor each others’ behavior, and bonds members around the belief that others on the
team won’t take advantage of them.
Performance Evaluation and Reward Systems
Individual performance evaluations, fixed hourly wages, individual incentives, and the like
are not consistent with the development of high-performance teams.
So, in addition to evaluating and rewarding employees for their individual contributions,
management should consider group-based appraisals, profit sharing, gain sharing, small
group incentives, and other system modifications that will reinforce team effort and
commitment.

Process
The final category related to team effectiveness is processed variables. These include
member commitment to a common purpose, the establishment of specific team goals,
team efficacy, a managed level of conflict, and minimizing social loafing.
A common purpose
Effective teams have a common and meaningful purpose that provides direction,
momentum, and commitment for members.
Specific goals
Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic
performance goals. Goals lead individuals to higher performance, goals also energize
teams.
These specific goals facilitate clear communication. They also help teams maintain their
focus on getting results.
Team efficacy
Effective teams have confidence in themselves. They believe they can succeed. We call
this team efficacy.
Success breeds success. Teams that have been successful raise their beliefs about future
success which in turn motivates them to work harder.
Conflict levels
Conflict on a team is not necessarily bad.
Social loafing
It is common that individuals can hide inside a group. They car engage in social loafing
and coast on the group’s effort because their individual contributions can’t be identified.
Effective teams undermine this tendency by holding themselves accountable at both
individual and team level.
Successful teams make members individually and jointly accountable for the team’s
purpose, goals, and approach. They are clear on what they are individually responsible
for and what they are jointly responsible for.