B102 Organisational Behaviour ::: OB01 ::: 6th Presentation

LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Identify personality, skills and abilities as some
factors in selecting people based on person-job fit.
• Describe dimensions of personality and their
manifested work behaviours.
• Explain the influence of situational requirements on
personality-driven behaviours.
• Propose strategies to mitigate performance issues
arising from gaps in personality-job fit.

2
REASON FOR THIS PROBLEM
Working with People to Get Things Done

Managing Individuals - Job Performance, Satisfaction & Involvement

Job Fit
Personality
Ability

Immediate Benefit: For the Workplace:

Understand the behaviours of
• Select the right job for yourself (and the
yourself and your teammates as
right people for different jobs).
you will be working and learning
• Understand your own natural
in teams for the next three
tendencies and those of others 
years!
manage weaknesses to improve yours
This would help you value
and other’s work performance.
diversity and to work through
personal differences and
preserving harmony. 3
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
① What is the ideal Big 5 personality profile for each job?
② Whose profiles best match the ideal profiles?
Store
Manager

Nelson Susila Herbert Daphne

③ What are the gaps between the profiles of the selected
candidates and the ideal profiles?
Marketing
Executive ④ How can these gaps be addressed?
④ What are the qualifications, knowledge and skills that
might be needed in these jobs?

4
INTRODUCTION

Personality of Candidate Personality Required for Job

=
Personality-Job Fit

Skills and Abilities of Candidate Skills and Abilities Needed

=
Person-Job Fit
5
BIG 5 DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY
Personality
—Relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions and behaviours
that characterise a person
—Can be described through 5 categories of traits:
Tendency to be dutiful and seek competence
Conscientiousness and achievement
Tendency to defer to others and seek social
Agreeableness harmony
Tendency to easily experience unpleasant
Neuroticism emotions
Openness to Fascination with novelty and tendency to enjoy
Experience diversity

Extroversion Tendency to seek stimulation and engage with

external world
See attachment in worksheet for details. 6
BIG 5 DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY
• Dimensions are on a continuum from high to low (see attachment in the
Worksheet for details)
• Research shows that high Conscientiousness and low Neuroticism equals to
better individual performance across most jobs
• Other dimensions could also affect job performance:
– Agreeableness
• High  interpersonal aspects (e.g. getting along with others)
• Low situations that require tough and objective decisions
– Extroversion
• High  specific occupations (e.g. salespeople, managers, police
officers)
– Openness to Experience
• High  jobs in creative industry and where adaptability is needed
• Low  conventional and down-to-earth jobs such as police work, some
service-related jobs 7
SELECTING STORE MANAGER
Ideal Big-5 Profile Rationale
Conscientiousness: HIGH • Keep records or maintain security, and
cleanliness  highly organised, careful and
responsible

Agreeableness: MED • Work-related matters  be objective

• Staff facing personal issues  show trust and
empathy

Neuroticism: LOW • Many tasks to handle  need to cope with stress

well

Openness: LOW • Routine tasks  no need for diversity in work

Extroversion: MED • Organising tasks  Be assertive, action-oriented

• BUT Cannot get bored with desk job

8
APPLICATION:
SELECTING STORE MANAGER

The Job Requires …

Nelson Susila Herbert Daphne
Conscientiousness: HIGH
Agreeableness: MED
Neuroticism: LOW
Openness to Experience: LOW
Extroversion: MED
Total Fit (Out of 5) 2 2 5 1

Perfect personality-job fit: Herbert

9
SELECTING MARKETING EXECUTIVE
Ideal Big-5 Profile Rationale: This person needs to …
Conscientiousness: HIGH • Be highly organised as the job involves a lot of
planning work and be achievement-oriented
towards developing successful initiatives.
Agreeableness: MED • Balance between cooperating / compromising
(particularly with creative team in designing
products) and ensuring own goals are met (be
street smart in dealing with external parties).
Neuroticism: LOW • Effectively handle all problems that can crop up
with events/promotions management without
getting emotional.
Openness: HIGH • Perform a job that largely involves creativity and
coming up with new ideas.
Extroversion: HIGH • Enjoy working with different groups of people
(customers, creative team and partners for K-Pop
events) and be action-oriented to get the initiatives
going.
10
APPLICATION:
SELECTING MARKETING EXECUTIVE

The Job Requires …

Nelson Susila Herbert Daphne
Conscientiousness: HIGH
Agreeableness: MED
Neuroticism: LOW
Openness to Experience: HIGH
Extroversion: HIGH
Total Fit (Out of 5) 2 4 3 3

No perfect personality-job fit. Best fit: Susila

Ginny needs to manage Susila’s High Neuroticism.
11
 APPLICATION:
MANAGING Susila
Ginny can help Susila
Possible behaviour issues manage her stress and
due to high Neuroticism: emotional reactions.
• Unable to think clearly and make right
• Teach her how to make realistic
decisions in organising K-pop events
assessment of situations (helps to
since handling such visits-cum-events is
reduce undue worry)
rather stressful work

• Share with her stress management

• Reacting emotionally (shouting, feeling
techniques (to change her mood by
depressed, etc.) when dealing with
changing her thoughts)
difficult external parties / customers as
well as rejection
• Guide her to accept what she cannot
change and focus on what she can
• Berating herself and developing low
change
confidence in her ability to perform her
work  poor work motivation and
performance
12
 CONCLUSION
• Herbert is the most suitable person for the job of Store Manager.
• Susila is the most suitable person for the job of Marketing Executive.
• Decisions were made by comparing the ideal personality profiles for the
jobs against the candidates’ personality profiles.
• Since Susila does not have a perfect job-personality fit, we have made
suggestions to address possible work issues that can arise from her high
Neuroticism.
• Other than job-personality fit, we should look at the abilities, skills and
interests of the candidates.

13
EXTENDED LEARNING A
 Knowledge, Skills &Ability
Abilities: Mental and
physical capacities to
perform various tasks
Skills: Dexterity at
performing specific tasks,
learnt through training or
Others
experience

• Numerical ability: Able • Educational • Knowledge of and

to perform basic math qualifications (e.g. interest in K-Pop
operations quickly (for diploma in business
Store Manager) management)
• Word fluency: Able to • Relevant work
express oneself quickly experience (retail
and easily, with management, sales,
flexibility marketing, events
• Physical ability: Able to management, etc.)
stand for long periods / • People skills (e.g. how
carry heavy items to relate to and work
with people)

15
EXTENDED LEARNING B
 INTERACTIONIST THEORY
It is NOT true that people without the right personality-fit cannot do a job.
People can modify their natural behaviour to fit the work situations. But it
is difficult to behave to the extent of someone whose natural behaviour
fits the situation.

Situation Requires You To: Your Personality: HOW YOU BEHAVE:

+
Situation Requires You To: Your Personality: HOW YOU BEHAVE:

+
Source: Greenberg, J. & Baron, R. (2008). Behavior in organization. Chapter 4, pp. 135-158. 17
REFERENCES
Websites
• Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance:
A meta analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1–26. Retrieved March 24, 2014, from University of
Baltimore website: http://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch/641/barrick%20and%20mount%201991.pdf

Textbooks
• Greenberg, J. (2005). Managing behavior in organizations (4th ed.) New Jersey: Pearson -
Prentice Hall.
• Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. (2008). Behavior in organization (9th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
• Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R. (2003). Organisational behaviour: Key concepts, skills & best practices.
McGraw-Hill Irwin.
• McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2009). Organisational behavior: [essentials] (2nd ed.). New
York: McGraw-Hill.
• Mukherjee, K. (2009). Principles of management and Organisational behaviour (2nd ed.). Tata
McGraw-Hill Education Pte Ltd.
• Mullins, L. J. (2007). Management and Organisational behaviour (8th ed.). Pearson-Prentice Hall.
• Robbins, S.P. (2005). Essentials of Organisational behaviour (8th ed.). Pearson-Prentice Hall.
• Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2009). Organisational behaviour (13th ed.). Pearson-Prentice Hall.

18
AFTER-CLASS WORK
Daily Activity (by 2359 hrs today)
• Complete the quiz as well as peer and self-evaluations.
• Complete your Reflection Journal .

End-of-Week Activity
• Review the 6th Presentation slides.
• Read the materials given in the Resources (compulsory reading).
• Complete and submit Activity in SharePoint for CE point.

Preparation for Next Week

• Do the pre-class work for Week 2 (compulsory).