UNIVERSITY OF THE PEOPLE

MBA

BUS 5113 - Organizational Theory and

Behavior

Written Assignment Unit 2

September 2021
How attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors are affected positively or negatively by below

factors in a personal and organizational context

Stereotype

This refers to the tendency to perceive another person as belonging to a single class or category.

Stereotyping may lead to favorable or unfavorable traits to the person being perceived.

Because each individual is unique, the real traits will generally be quite different from those the

stereotype would suggest. Common stereo type groups in organizations include: Manager,

Supervisors, Union members, Young/old, Women/men, White collar/blue collar,

Accountants/sales people/engineers, Customers, etc. Most often a person is put into

a stereotype because the perceiver knows only the overall category to which the person

belongs.

Halo Effect

This is where a person is perceived on the basis of one trait, e.g., during performance appraisal, a

manager makes an error in judging persons total personality or performance based on a single

positive/negative trait like intelligence or appearance. The halo effect problem has been given

considerable attention in research on performance appraisal. For example, a comprehensive

review of the performance appraisal literature found that halo effect was the dependent variable

in over a third of the studies and was found to be a major problem affecting appraisal accuracy

Luthans (2011). The current thinking on the halo effect can be summarized from the extensive

research literature as follows:

 • It is a common rater error.

• It has both true and illusory components.

• It has led to inflated correlations among rating dimensions and is due to the influence of a

general evaluation and specific judgments.

• It has negative consequences and should be avoided or removed.

The halo effect has important implications for the study and eventual understanding of

organizational behavior. Unfortunately, even though the halo effect is one of the longest

recognized and most pervasive problems associated with applications such as performance

appraisal in the field of organizational behavior, a critical analysis of the considerable research

concludes that we still do not know much about the impact of the halo effect

Tokenism

It is the process by which people attempt to manager or control the perception of other form of

them. The tendency is for people to present themselves so as to impress others in a socially

desirable way. It is commonly used during recruitment and selection, performance appraisal etc.

It is a political too for one to build image and be successful.

Kanter (1977) argued tokenism as an “artificial appearance” achieved by including a limited

number of individuals in the minority group in effective positions within the existing group due

to their characteristics (gender, race, religion, age, etc.) accepted as disadvantage or groups’

characteristics different from the dominant group. He urges that all groups being in the position

of minority face the experiences of women working in managerial positions. In other words, the

negative experiences lived by women in managerial positions are seen in all groups which are
less than the dominant group in number. Tokenism has a dimension beyond inadequate

numerical representation and there are different dimensions affecting the representation and

employees experiences negative processes identified as performance pressures, boundary

heightening and role encapsulation in their organizations.

References

✓ Jorgen Laegaard. (2006): Organization Theory, 1st Edition

✓ Luthans, Fred. (2011): Organizational Behavior, “An Evidence-Based Approach”, 12th

Edition, McGraw-Hill