Organisational Behaviour (OB)

Week 2 – Individual differences and Managing

groups and teams.

M…………………….
 Classroom etiquette

Always
preview/review Keep your mobile Ask only relevant
relevant materials phone switched off questions during
on Moodle or in a silent mode teaching time
before/after class

Do not interrupt the Always take a

lecturer or session laptop with you for
when you arrive Dress Appropriately
all lectures and
late tutorials
 Module learning outcomes
1.Demonstrate an understanding of organisational behaviour, drawing
on relevant theories, concepts and business-related examples.

2.Show the ability to apply concepts and frameworks from organisational

behaviour to different types of businesses.

3.Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of how organisational

theories, concepts and evidence can explain the way that people
behave and interact at work at individual, group and organisational
levels.

4.Demonstrate appropriate academic writing skills, referencing and good

academic practice.
 Assignment brief
▪ 4000 word count essay

▪ Discuss the theories, concepts and frameworks of

organisational behaviour and why they are important to
organisational life.
 Learning outcomes for today
By the end of the session, you should be able to:

▪ Understand the individual’s contribution to organisational behaviour and

performance.

▪ Recognise the importance of personality, perception and attitudes.

✓ Identify individual contribution and assess alternative approaches

to personality and its measurement.

✓ Explain the process of perception and any distortions that may arise.
▪ Understand work groups and teams, and their importance.
Individuals

▪ Are all different

▪ …Makes people difficult to manage!
How do Individuals Differ?
• Ethnic origin ▪ Motivation

• Physique ▪ Attitudes

• Gender ▪ Personality traits and types

• Early family experiences ▪ Intelligence and abilities

• Social and cultural factors ▪ Perception

• National culture
 Determinants of Individual
Behaviours

Personality Perception interpretation of

psychological structures stimuli
and processes which
shapes a person’s actions
and reactions

Learning Attitudes
acquiring new set of mental views
knowledge, skills and based on beliefs and
attitudes feelings
Individual’s Contribution to the
Organisation
▪ Achieving organisational goals vs personal goals

▪ Involvement, commitment and initiative

▪ Efficient and effective performance of tasks

▪ Flexibility in roles

▪ Low absenteeism, good timekeeping, low turnover

▪ Loyalty

▪ Represent the image and values of the organisation

▪ Contribute time, energy, presence, ideas, skills and effort

 Individuality vs
Conformity
▪ New ideas, creativity and drive must conform with goals, norms
and values

▪ Cooperation with team – team players

▪ Challenge status quo and have original thinking

▪ Match rewards with behaviour

▪ Individuals are different – thinking, communication and behaviour

▪ Explore methods of interpreting and reacting to others… study

personality
 Review in Pairs
1.What do you understand by the phrase “getting things done
through people”?

2.Rank what you think the ten most important personal attributes
that people can contribute to organisations.
What is Personality?
One School of Thought
Stable and enduring aspects of an individual

personality
Distinguishes people Predicts their behaviour

❖ Suggests can:
▪ Identify characteristics
▪ Predict behavioural disposition
What is personality?
Second school of thought

Characteristic Personality Modes of thinking

patterns of behaviour

Determines a person’s adjustment to the

environment
❖ Suggests
▪ Permanence in personality
▪ Personality is displayed in a social and physical
context
Approaches to Studying Personality
Nomothetic – seeks to Idiographic – focuses on
identify and measure the Approaches uniqueness of individuals as
characteristics a whole

Nature - Sees Nurture - Sees personality as

personality traits as a function of upbringing and
genetic experience of others

Middle-of-the-road
Sees personality as an interaction
between traits and influences
Influences on Personality

Genetic Social factors

factors

Influences on
personality

Situational Cultural
factors factors
Theories of Personality
❖ Psychoanalytic Approach (Idiographic)
• Unconscious behaviour
• E.g., Freud

❖ Personality Traits and Types (Nomothetic)

• Identifying and classifying features that
individuals share
• Each trait is a continuum
 Type/Trait Approach
Examples of Personality Types
▪ Stable extroverts
▪ Talkative, responsive, easygoing, lively, carefree
▪ Unstable extroverts
▪ Impulsive, changeable, excitable, restless
▪ Stable introverts
▪ Calm, even tempered, peaceful, thoughtful
▪ Unstable introverts
▪ Anxious, moody, reserved, pessimistic
 Factor Analysis
▪ Statistical technique

▪ Takes numerical information from eg questionnaires

▪ Groups together underlying factors

▪ Reduces the adjectives that describes personality and behaviour

to a manageable list
Factor Analysis - (a) Cattel and 16
PF
1. outgoing 1. reserved
2. more intelligent 2. less intelligent
3. emotionally stable
- The focus here is the
3. affected by feelings
4. dominant
4. submissive reduction of number of
5. happy-go-lucky
6. conscientious
5. serious variables, by combining two
6. expedient
7. venturesome
or more variables into a
8. sensitive 7. timid

9. suspicious 8. tough minded single factor.

10. imaginative 9. trusting
11. shrewd 10. practical
12. apprehensive 11. forthright
13. experimenting
12. confident
14. self-sufficient
13. conservative
15. controlled
14. group dependent
16. tense
15. uncontrolled
16. relaxed
 Individual Work
Complete the following about yourself
Outgoing yes/no Reserved yes/no
More intelligent yes/no Less intelligent yes/no
Emotionally stable yes/no Affected by feelings yes/no
Dominant yes/no Submissive yes/no
Happy-go-lucky yes/no Serious yes/no
Conscientious yes/no Expedient yes/no
venturesome yes/no Timid yes/no
Sensitive yes/no Tough minded yes/no
suspicious yes/no Trusting yes/no
imaginative yes/no Practical yes/no
Shrewd yes/no Forthright yes/no
Apprehensive yes/no Confident yes/no
experimenting yes/no Conservative yes/no
Self-sufficient yes/no Group dependent yes/no
Controlled yes/no Uncontrolled yes/no
tense yes/no Relaxed yes/no
Factor Analysis
(b) Steers – Clusters of Traits
▪ 6 clusters of like factors:

▪ Interpersonal – trust, authority orientation

▪ Social sensitivity – empathy

▪ Ascendancy tendencies – dominance

▪ Dependability – self-reliant

▪ Emotional stability – control, anxiety

▪ Cognitive style – inflexibility, risk-taking

 Factor Analysis
(c) Eysenck’s Personality Traits
▪ 3 factors / scales
▪ Extroversion – introversion
▪ Neuroticism – stability INTROVERSION

▪ psychoticism
Passive Quiet

Controlled Anxious

Calm
NEUTROTICISM
STABILITYY

Excitable
Carefree

Sociable

EXTROVERSION
Measurement of Personality
▪ Standardised personality tests
✓ Psychometric tests
▪ Applications for recruitment and selection
▪ 10 Hardest Choices Ever (Personality Test) –
YouTube
Watch video and discus the personality test
Features of an Effective Personality
Test
Reliability Validity

Features of a
personality test

Evidence
Situation

- Behaviour is the product of the interaction of the person and the

situation.
 Difficulties in Studying Personality
▪ Competing theories provide alternative explanations of the same
behaviour

▪ Only overt behaviour can be observed

▪ Personality tests are prone to problems such as “faked responses”

▪ Assessments may be an infringement of privacy

▪ Risk of selecting clones with identical characteristics – stifles creativity

▪ Little scientific evidence for effectiveness What is Personality? -

Personality Psychology – YouTube
 Individual Question
▪ What is the quote below defining? ______________

“An individual’s unique set of ____________ and tendencies which

shape a sense of self and what that person does and the behaviour they
exhibit”

Source: p.g. 125, Mullins, 2007, Management & Organisational

Behaviour, 8th Edition

▪ What do you think the missing word in the quote is? ______________
Perception
The Process and Principles of
Perception
▪ Definition 1

▪ Perception is the process by which we extract meaning from what

may appear to be a confused and confusing universe

▪ Perception is ‘a mental process involving the selection,

organisation, structuring and interpretation of information in order
to make inferences and give meaning to it’

▪ Highly subjective What is Perception | Explained in 2 min – YouTube

 Importance of Perception
▪ An understanding of the way the process operates is
fundamental to organisational behaviour.

▪ It provides unique image of how we see and experience

the real world.
The Process of Perception

INPUTS PERCEPTIO OUTPUTS ACTION

Data from the N Meaning
senses

1. sight 1. information
2. touch Interpretation 2. patterns
3. smell 3. meaning
4. feel
5. taste
 Barriers to Perception
▪ Failure of one or more senses
▪ If stimuli / message is not received, rest of the perceptual process is
irrelevant
▪ Sensory distortion
▪ If a spoken instruction is misheard, then it is perceived or interpreted
wrongly
▪ Scope for distortion
▪ If the message is wrongly received or interpreted, then the outcome
will be flawed
Ways of Processing Sensory Information
▪ Selectivity

▪ Perceptual Sets

▪ Figure / Ground Ambiguity – See next slide

▪ Stereotyping

▪ Halo Effect

▪ Other Perceptual Distortions

▪ Perception and Context

Ways of Processing Sensory
Information
▪ Figure / Ground Ambiguity
▪ Two alternative perceptions of the same issue/situation

Figure 6.3 Mullins, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 9th

Figure 6.6 edition © Laurie J. Mullins 2011
 Locus of Control
▪ External and Internal Locus of
▪ Is the person’s unique Control
position relative to:- ▪ External:
▪ An event ✓Explanation of events based
on good luck, chance, or
▪ Uniqueness of his
someone else’s effort
personality
▪ Internal:
▪ Cognitive ability
✓Emphasises a person’s skill,
▪ Perceptual capacities cunning or ability – have
control over events
 Transactional Analysis
▪ Communication and perception are interlinked and depend on
the provision of feedback to confirm or deny our impressions

▪ All experiences are stored and can be replayed

▪ Three personality ego states

 Transactional Analysis
▪ Types of personality ego states:
▪ Child
▪ Playful, spontaneous and emotional
▪ E.g. “How do you think we could improve our safety record?”
▪ Adult
▪ Rational and objective behaviour based on facts
▪ E.g. “Let me help you with that – I can see you are struggling”
▪ Parent
▪ Behaviour, attitudes and feelings inherited from parents
▪ E.g. “Great, it’s Friday. Who’s coming to the pub?”
 Summary
▪ You should now know about:
▪ The individual’s contribution to organisational behaviour

▪ The importance of personality, perception, attitudes and learning

▪ Alternative approaches to personality and its measurement.
▪ Criteria that differentiate personality, e.g. gender/ traits/ abilities/ physique/ motivation/ attitudes/
development.
▪ Psychoanalytical (Idiographic) and traits approaches to personality
▪ Process of perception and its key principles.
▪ Sources in perceptual distortion:
▪ Selectivity; stereotyping; halo effect; labelling;

▪ Examine the significance of attitudes, their formation, functions and measurement

▪ Distinguish between attitudes, beliefs, intentions and opinions
Any question
 References
• Bratton, J. and Bratton, J. (2017) Introduction to Work and Organizational Behaviour. 3rd ed. London:
Palgrave Macmillan

• Knights, D. and Willmott, H. (eds) (2017) Introducing Organizational Behaviour and Management. 3rd ed.
Andover: Cengage Learning.

• Mullins, L .J. (2019) Organisational Behaviour in the Workplace. 12th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education

• Mullins, L. J. (2011) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education

• Mullins, L. J. (2010) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education

• Robbins, S. P and Judge, T. A (2010) Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 10th ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall.

• Buchanan, D. A. and Huczynski, A. A. (2019) Organisational Behaviour, 10th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education

• Rollinson, D. (2008) Organisational Behaviour and Analysis, 4th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education