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Module 1 – Introduction to Organizational Behavior

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the module, the student should be able to:

1. Discuss the importance of interpersonal skills.
2. Define organizational behavior (OB).
3. Explain the value of systematic study to OB.
4. Identify the major disciplines that contribute to OB.
5. List the important challenges and opportunities to managers in applying OB concepts.
6. Identify areas of analysis in OB.

The Importance of Interpersonal Skills

It is only in the late 1980s that human behavior and people skills were given important attention.
Business schools have recognized the significance of interpersonal skills in the effectiveness of
managers. Incorporating the organizational behavior concepts in the workplace resulted to various
important outcomes to the organization. Some of the important outcomes are: better financial
performance, lower turnover of quality employees, higher quality workplace relationships and
employee job satisfaction, lower stress and turnover; and can foster social responsibility awareness
among organizational members. Managers need not only have technical skills in order to succeed,
they must have people skills.

Organizational Behavior and Management

Definitions:

Manager: Someone who gets things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate
resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals.
Organization: A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that
functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Functions of Management:
P – planning
O – organizing
L – leading
C – controlling

Functions of Management
1. Planning requires a manager to:
a. Define goals (organizational, departmental, worker levels).
b. Establish an overall strategy for achieving those goals.
c. Develop a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
2. Organizing requires a manager to:
a. Determine what tasks are to be done.
b. Who is to be assigned the tasks.
c. How the tasks are to be grouped.
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d. Determine who reports to whom.

e. Determine where decisions are to be made (centralized/decentralized).
3. Leading requires a manager to:
a. Motivate employees.
b. Direct the activities of others.
c. Select the most effective communication channels.
d. Resolve conflicts among members.
4. Controlling requires a manager to:
a. Monitor the organization’s performance.
b. Compare actual performance with the previously set goals.
c. Correct significant deviations.
Management Roles:
According to Henry Mintzberg managers perform ten different, highly interrelated
roles or sets of behaviors attributable to their jobs.
1. Interpersonal Roles
a. Figurehead—duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature.
b. Leader—hire, train, motivate, and discipline employees.
c. Liaison—contact outsiders who provide the manager with information.
2. Informational Roles
a. Monitor—collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own.
b. Disseminator—a conduit to transmit information to organizational members.
c. Spokesperson—represent the organization to outsiders.
3. Decisional Roles
a. Entrepreneur—managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their
organization’s performance.
b. Disturbance handlers—take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems.
c. Resource allocators—responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary
resources.
d. Negotiator role—discuss issues and bargains with other units to gain advantages for
their own unit.

Management Skills

Skills that differentiate effective from ineffective managers:

Technical Skills - The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some
specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on the job.
Human Skills - Ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually
and in groups. Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent.
Conceptual Skills - The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.
Decision making, for example, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can
correct them, evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one.

What is Organizational Behavior?

Organizational Behavior: OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals,
groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such
knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
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What is the relevance of OB to personal and organizational success?

Understanding how people behave in the organizations will help a person work effectively with
and manage others. Effective interaction with other people is important for advancement in
organizations and for effective work performance. Knowing how people think and act, how to
motivate others, how to solve conflicts are among the important skills of successful people. OB
applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of organizational structure
on behavior in order to make organizations perform more effectively. Appropriate application of
OB knowledge about individuals, groups, and the effect of organizational structure on worker
behavior can help companies create conditions that will make organizations more effective and
perform well.

Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study

We cannot depend on our commonsense to read others because it can often lead to erroneous
predictions. A more systematic approach will improve our ability to predict behavior.
Systematic Study of Behavior is a means to make reasonable predictions. It looks at relationship,
attempts to attribute causes, and bases our conclusions on scientific evidence.

Evidence-Based Management (EBM) - complements systematic study of making decisions

based on evidence.
Intuition – “gut feelings”
Big Data
Big data—the extensive use of statistical compilation and analysis—didn’t become possible until
computers were sophisticated enough both to store and manipulate large amounts of information.
This enabled them to create more targeted marketing strategies than ever before. This used in
detecting how much risk is incurred at any time; and preventing catastrophes large and small.
Currently, it is also used to predict human behavioral trends, and there is a good promise for
understanding, helping, and managing people in the future use of this big data. Although it will
always be limited in predicting behavior, curtailing risk, and preventing catastrophes.
Limitations: As technological capabilities for handling big data have increased, so have issues of
privacy. This is particularly true when data collection includes surveillance instruments.

Disciplines That Contribute to the OB Field

1. Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the
behavior of human beings.
2. Social psychology blends the concepts of psychology and sociology.
3. Sociologist studies people in relation to their fellow human beings.
4. Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

1. Responding to economic pressures
2. Continuing globalization
3. Managing workforce diversity
4. Improving customer service
5. Improving people skills
6. Social media
7. Enhancing employee well-being at work
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8. Innovation and change

9. Improving ethical behavior
10. Pandemics and calamities

The General OB Model by Robbins and Judge:

A model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.
It proposes three types of variables:
1. Inputs are the variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that
lead to processes.
2. Processes - are actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of
inputs and that lead to certain outcomes. At the group level, they include communication,
leadership, power and politics, and conflict and negotiation. Finally, at the organizational
level, processes include human resource management and change practices.
3. Outcomes – are the key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected
by some other variables.
 Individual-level outcomes – like attitudes and satisfaction, task performance,
citizenship behavior, and withdrawal behavior.
 Attitudes and stress
 Employee attitudes – are the evaluations employees make, ranging
from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events.
 Stress is an unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to
environmental pressures.
 Task performance - The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing
your core job tasks is a reflection of your level of task performance.
 Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) – is the discretionary behavior that
is not part of an employee’s job descriptions for the welfare of the organization.
Evidence indicates organizations that have such employees outperform those that
don’t.
 Withdrawal behavior –actions that employees take to separate themselves from
the organization.
 Group-level - cohesion and functioning are the dependent variables.
 Group cohesion - is the extent to which members of a group support and validate
one another at work.
 Group functioning – refers to the quantity and quality of a group’s work output.
 Productivity - An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by
transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost. This requires both
effectiveness and efficiency.
 Organizational level – overall profitability and survival.
o Survival - The final outcome which is the evidence that the organization is able
to exist and grow over the long term.
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Three levels of analysis:

 Individual-level
o Making analysis on personal or biographical characteristics, personality
characteristics, ability, values, attitudes, personality and emotions.
 Group-level
o Analyzing how individuals in groups are influenced by what are expected of
them, what the group considers to be acceptable standards of behavior, how
they are attracted to each, work teams, communication, leadership, power and
politics and conflicts.
 Organizational-level
o Examining the design of the formal organization, organizational culture, human
resource policies and practices.
 The model proceeds from left to right, with inputs leading to processes, and processes
leading to outcomes.
 Notice that the model also shows that outcomes can influence inputs in the future.

Summary and Implications for Managers

 Managers need to develop their interpersonal, or people, skills to be effective in their jobs.
 Organizational behavior (OB) investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and
structure have on behavior within an organization, and it applies that knowledge to make
organizations work more effectively.
 Specific implications for managers are below:
1. Resist the inclination to rely on generalizations; some provide valid insights into
human behavior, but many are erroneous.
2. Use metrics and situational variables rather than “hunches” to explain cause-and-
effect relationships.
3. Work on your interpersonal skills to increase your leadership potential.
4. Improve your technical skills and conceptual skills through training and staying current
with organizational behavior trends like big data.
5. Organizational behavior can improve your employees’ work quality and productivity
by showing you how to empower your employees, design and implement change
programs, improve customer service, and help your employees balance work–life
conflicts.

Questions:
1. What is the importance of interpersonal or people skills in the workplace?
2. Why will learning about OB help you get a better career and be a better manager?

Sources: Robbins and Judge (2016), Organizational Behavior, 17th. Pearson.

Griffin, et al (2019), Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 12th ed., Cengage.
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MODULE 2 - Workplace Diversity

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, students should be able to:

1. Describe the two major forms of workplace diversity.

2. Describe how discrimination undermines organizational effectiveness.
3. Describe how the key biographical characteristics are relevant to OB.
4. Explain how other differentiating characteristics factor into OB
5. Demonstrate the relevance of intellectual and physical abilities to OB.
6. Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively.

In this module, we will see that a diverse workforce can be able to contribute in its full potential to the
effectiveness of an organization. Individual differences are not just age, gender, or race. It also includes
differences in abilities and other individual characteristics that can affect employee behavior and influence
employee performance. We will study how diversity awareness will enable managers to manage a diverse
workforce effectively to maximize the organization’s performance.

What is Diversity?

Diversity – the similarities and differences among people.

Forms of diversity:
 Surface-level diversity – differences in people that can easily be perceived, including race, age,
ethnicity, physical abilities, physical characteristics and gender.
 Deep-level diversity – differences in values, personalities, goals, work preferences, knowledge, skills
that cannot be seen directly.

Discrimination can occur in a Diverse Workforce

Diversity management includes trying to eliminate unfair discrimination.

 Discrimination is to note a difference between things.
 It is an unfair discrimination if we allow our behavior to be influenced by stereotypes about groups.
Stereotyping – is judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which that person
belongs (Robbins and Judge).
 Refusal to recognize individual differences is harmful to organizations and employees.
 Examples of Discrimination in the Workplace
1. Discriminatory policies or practices – denying equal opportunity to perform or giving unequal
rewards for performance.
2. Sexual harassment – unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual
nature that create a hostile or offensive work environment.
3. Intimidation – overt threat or bullying directed at anyone.
4. Mockery and insults – jokes or negative stereotypes; sometimes the results of jokes taken too
far.
5. Exclusion – exclusion of certain people from job opportunities or other events.
6. Incivility – disrespectful treatment
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How can Biographical Characteristics be Relevant to OB?

Diversity in Biographical Characteristics

Biographical characteristics – are personal characteristics that are objective and easily obtained from
personnel records. Individuals’ age, race, gender, disability, and length of service are some of the most
obvious ways employees differ.
Variations in these can be the basis for discrimination

Age
 Does job performance decline with increasing age?
 Studies show that turnover and absenteeism rates are lower among older workers, and age is not
associated with lower productivity. In other words, the older you get, the less likely you are to quit
your job; in general, older employees have lower rates of avoidable absence than do younger
employees; and contrary to the beliefs of many, evidence show that it is not true that productivity
declines with age.

Sex
 There are no consistent male-female differences in problem-solving ability, analytical skills,
competitive drive, motivation, sociability, or learning drive.
 But women earn less than men for the same positions and have fewer professional opportunities.

Race and Ethnicity

 Research into effects of race and ethnic diversity show that
 Employees tend to favor colleagues of their own race in performance evaluations, promotion
decisions, and pay raises.
 Discrimination leads to increased turnover, which is detrimental to organizational performance.
 Some research suggests that having a positive climate for diversity overall can lead to increased
sales.
Disability
 A person is disabled who has any physical or mental impairment that substantial limits one or more
major life activities.
 Research on workers with disabilities has found that they receive higher performance evaluations
based on lower performance expectations; and they are less likely to be hired.
 Hidden Disabilities – may include sensory disabilities, autoimmune disorders, chronic illness or
pain, cognitive or learning impairments sleep disorders, and psychological challenges. PWDs must
be accommodated in organizations in the Philippines.

Diversity in Other Differentiating Characteristics

Tenure
 Tenure is a good predictor of employee productivity.
 Tenure and job satisfaction are positively related.
Religion
 The Labor Code of the Philippines prohibits discrimination based on religion.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
 Most Fortune 500 companies have policies covering sexual orientation and about half now have
policies on gender identity.
Cultural Identity
 Global integration and changing labor markets, required global companies to understand and respect
individual cultural identities of their employees, both as individuals and as groups.
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Diversity in Ability

Ability – is an individual’s capacity to perform various tasks in a job.

Two types of abilities: 1) intellectual abilities, and 2) physical abilities

Intellectual Abilities
Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities – thinking, reasoning, and problem
solving.
 Most societies place a high value on intelligence
 The seven most frequently cited dimensions making up intellectual abilities are number aptitude,
verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, spatial
visualization, and memory.
 General mental ability is an overall factor of intelligence as suggested by the positive correlations
among specific intellectual ability dimensions.
 Evidence strongly supports the idea that the structures and measures of intellectual abilities
generalize across cultures.
 Jobs differ in the demands they place on intellectual abilities.
 Although intelligence is a big help in performing a job well, it doesn’t make people happier or more
satisfied with their jobs.

Physical Abilities
Physical abilities – the capacity to do tasks that require stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar
characteristics.
 There are nine basic abilities involved in the performance of physical tasks. These involve strength
factors, such as, dynamic, trunk, static, or explosive strengths; flexibility factors, such as extent or
dynamic flexibility; and others factors, such as body coordination, balance, and stamina.
In order for organizations to have optimally productive workforce, they must hire all types of people and
should not discriminate anyone on the basis of personal characteristics.

Diversity Management Strategies

Diversity management – are programs that make everyone aware of and sensitive to the needs and
differences of others. It should be everyone’s concern to make it more successful.
1. Recruit and develop diverse employees
 Target desired demographic groups in recruitment
 Create a positive atmosphere for diversity by fair and objective selection, development, and
promotion based on qualifications
2. Create diversity in groups
 Develop groups with varied education and expertise
 Emphasize common interest and facilitate open communication with each other.
3. Install effective diversity programs.
 Educate managers about the legal framework for equal employment opportunity and emphasize fair
treatment of all people.
 Teach managers the value of diverse workforce in serving effectively a diverse customer base.
 Encourage personal development that brings out the skills and abilities of everyone.

Implications for Managers:

1. Understand your organization's anti-discrimination policies thoroughly and share them with your
employees.
2. Assess and challenge your stereotype beliefs to increase your objectivity.
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3. Look beyond readily observable biographical characteristics and consider the individual’s
capabilities before making management decisions.
4. Fully evaluate what accommodations a person with disabilities will need and then fine-tune a job
to that person’s abilities.
5. Seek to understand and respect the unique biographical characteristics of your employees; a fair
but individualistic approach yields the best performance.

Question:
1. What do you think is more important to group performance, surface-level diversity or deep-level
diversity? Why?

Sources: Robbins and Judge (2016), Organizational Behavior, 17th. Pearson.

Griffin, et al (2019), Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 12 th ed., Cengage.
Module 3 – Individual Behavior, Attitudes, and Job Satisfaction
Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this module, students should be able to:

1. Describe the three components of an attitude.
2. Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
3. Compare the major job attitudes.
4. Define job satisfaction.
5. List the main causes of job satisfaction.
6. Identify four outcomes of job satisfaction.
7. Identify employee responses to job dissatisfaction

Employee attitudes are clearly important to organizations. They influence behavior. When attitudes are
negative, they are symptoms of potential problems. They may result to absences, employee turnover,
low performance, poor product quality, poor customer services, and other behavioral problems. When
attitudes are favorable, they tend to be connected to many positive outcomes, such as, employee
satisfaction, high productivity, increased profits, and improved organizational effectiveness. In this
module, we look at attitudes, their link to behavior, and how employees’ satisfaction with their jobs
affects the workplace.

What are Attitudes?

Attitudes – are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events

(Robbins and Judge). They reflect how we feel about something
 Attitudes are feelings and beliefs that largely determine how employees will perceive their
environment, commit themselves to intended actions, and ultimately behave. (Newstrom)
 Attitude is a predisposition to respond that exerts an influence on a person’s response to a thing,
an idea, or a situation. (DuBrin)
 Attitude is a persistent tendency to feel and behave in a favorable or unfavorable way toward a
specific person, object, or idea (Hitt, Miller, and Colella).
 It also refers to a person’s complexes of beliefs and feelings about specific ideas, situations, or
other people (Griffin)
 They are likes or dislikes
 Attitudes are learned in childhood, and are modified as we grow into new roles, behaviors and
belief systems.
 Once learned, attitudes influence behavior, but not as simply as one may assume.
 Attitudes are complex.

What Are the Main Components of Attitudes?

Three components of an attitude

 Cognitive component – the opinion or belief about attitude object (positive or negative)
o “My pay is low.”
 Affective component – the feeling the object triggers (positive or negative)
o “I am angry over how little I am paid.”
 Behavioral component – the reaction toward the object (positive or negative)
o I am going to look for a job that pays better.”

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Attitude-Behavior Relationship

 The attitudes people hold determine what they do.

 We sometimes observe people change what they say so that it will not contradict to their
behavior. One researcher, Festinger proposed that cases of attitudes following behavior
illustrates the effects of cognitive dissonance – any incompatibility between two or more
attitudes or between behavior and attitudes of an individual.
 Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and
between their attitudes and their behavior. They either alter the attitudes or the behavior, or they
develop a rationalization for the discrepancy.
 The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the importance of the attitude, its
correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social pressures, and whether a
person has direct experience with the attitude.
 Important attitudes reflect our fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with
individuals or groups we value.
 Specific attitudes tend to predict specific behaviors, whereas general attitudes tend to best
predict general behaviors.
 Attitudes that our memories can easily access are more likely to predict our behavior. The
attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something
with which we have direct personal experience.

Why Do Attitudes Matter at Work?

Attitudes are important part of organizational behavior because they are linked with perception, learning,
emotions, and motivation.

What are the Major Job Attitudes?

1. Job Satisfaction – describes a positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics. A person with a high level of job satisfaction has positive attitudes toward the
job and vice versa.

2. Job Involvement – refers to the measure of the degree to which a person identifies
psychologically with his/her job and considers his/her perceived performance level important to
self-worth.
a. Psychological empowerment – employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they impact
their work.
b. High levels of both job involvement and psychological empowerment are positively
related to organizational citizenship and job performance.

3. Organizational Commitment –refers to a state in which an employee identifies with a

particular organization and its goals. They have a sense of organizational loyalty.

4. Perceived organizational support (POS) – is the degree to which employees believe the
organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being.

5. Employee engagement – individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for
the work he or she does.
Let us discuss in detail the implications of job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction.

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What is Job Satisfaction?

• Job satisfaction – is the positive feeling about one’s job (Robbins and Judge)
• It is the degree to which a person is gratified or fulfilled by one’s job (Griffin)

How do we measure job satisfaction?

Two populate approaches:
1. The single global rating – a response to one question, such as “All things considered, how
satisfied are you with your job? Respondents circle a number between 1 and 5 on a scale from
“highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.”
2. The summation of job facets – identifies key elements in a job such as the type of work, skills
needed, supervision, pay, promotion opportunities, culture, and relationships with coworkers.
Which approach is superior? Both are valid and both are helpful.

How satisfied are people in their jobs?

 Most people are satisfied with their jobs in the developed countries surveyed.
 Overall, people have been more satisfied with their jobs, with the work itself, and with
their supervisors and coworkers than they have been with their pay and with promotion
opportunities.

What Causes Job Satisfaction?

A. The work itself – Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control
satisfy most employees. The intrinsic nature of the work itself, social interactions with
coworkers, and supervision are important predictors of satisfaction.
B. Personality
 Research shows that people who believe in their inner worth and basic competence,
positive core self-evaluations (CSEs), are more satisfied with their jobs than those with
negative CSEs. Those with negative CSEs set less ambitious goals and easily give up
when confronting difficulties.
C. Pay – it does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness for many people, but the effect
can be smaller once an individual reaches a standard level of comfortable living.
D. Co-workers
E. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) – an organizations actions that benefit society or the
environment. CSR is good for the earth and good for people. Employees’ participation in the
organization’s CSR projects can contribute to increased job satisfaction for being a part of a
higher purpose of serving society.

Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

1. Employees with high job satisfaction perform better.
Happy workers are more likely to be productive workers.
2. Satisfied workers engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). They talk positively about
their company, help others, and do beyond their job descriptions.
3. Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction
4. Job satisfaction is positively corrected to life satisfaction

The Result of Job Dissatisfaction

 Employees express their job dissatisfaction in the following ways:
a. Exit - leaving the organization or looking for a new position
b. Voice - actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting
improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity.

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 c. Loyalty - passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking
up for the organization in the face of external criticism, and trusting the organization and its
management to “do the right thing.”
d. Neglect - passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or
lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.
 People who are not satisfied with their jobs are more likely to commit what is called
counterproductive work behavior (CWB) or deviant behavior in the workplace. The
behaviors often follow negative and sometimes longstanding attitudes.
 Absenteeism – dissatisfied employees have high absence rates
 Turnover – satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover especially if there are alternative
job prospects

Summary

Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes influence behavior and
indicate potential problems. Although having a satisfied workforce is not a guarantee of successful
organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests managers’ efforts to improve employee
attitudes will likely results in positive outcomes, including greater organizational effectiveness, higher
customer satisfaction, and increased profits.

Question:
1. What are the components of an individual’s attitude? Relate each component to an attitude
you currently have about something.

Sources: Robbins and Judge (2019), Organizational Behavior, 18the ed. Pearson.
Griffin, et al (2019), Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 12th ed., Cengage.

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BME 2102
Module 4 – Individual Personality, Values, and Emotions
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. Define personality and describe how it is measured.
2. Identify the factors that determine an individual’s personality.
3. Compare personality assessment approaches and describe how each model predicts behavior at work.
4. Discuss the importance of values.
5. Contrast terminal and instrumental values.
6. Differentiate a person-job fit and the person-organization fit.
7. Differentiate emotions and moods
8. Describe emotional intelligence and explain its role in job performance.
9. Apply the concepts about emotions and moods to OB

PERSONALITY

What is Personality?
Definitions:
 Personality is the sum total of ways in which individual reacts to and interacts with others (Robbins and
Judge).
o Our personality shape our behavior
o If we want to better understand the behavior of someone in an organization, we need to know
something about his/her personality.
 Personality is the relatively stable set of psychological attributes that distinguish one person from another
(Griffin, et al).
 Personality also refers to the persistent and enduring behavior patterns of an individual that are expressed
in a wide variety of situations (Dubrin)
o Your personality is the combination of attributes, traits, and characteristics that makes you unique.
Your walk, talk, appearance, speech, and creativity all contribute to your personality. Personality
can therefore be regarded as the core of who you are.

Measuring Personality
 Managers need to know how to measure personality.
 Personality tests are useful in hiring decisions and help managers forecast who is best for a job.
 Methods:
 The most common means of measuring personality is through self-report surveys, in which
individuals evaluate themselves on a series of factors, such as “I worry a lot about the future.”
 Problem: accuracy
 Observer-ratings survey – a coworker or another observer does the rating.
 Gives an independent assessment of personality.
 A combination of self-reports and observer reports predicts performance better than any one type of
information.

What Determines Personality?

Our personality is determined by heredity, environment, and situation.

 Heredity – factors determined at conception.
o Physical stature, facial features/attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and
reflexes Traits such as shyness, fear, aggression, can be traced to inherited genetic characteristics.
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o Energy level and biological rhythms are either completely or substantially influenced by
parentage—by your parents’ biological, physiological, and inherent psychology makeup.
o Three types of studies have demonstrated the effects of heredity:
o Investigation of identical twins
o Assessment of newborns and their behavior later in life
o Direct examination of genes
o The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the
molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
o Some aspects of our personality change over time such as our score on measures of dependability
increases over time.
o Early research tried to identify and label enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s
behavior: shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid.
o These enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior are called personality traits.

 Environment – factors that exert pressures on our personality formation; such as

o culture in which we are raised,
o early conditioning;
o norms among our family, friends and social groups;
o the environment we are exposed to; all play an important role in shaping our personality.

 Situation
o Influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality
o The different demands of different situations call forth difference of one’s personality.
o There is no classification scheme that tells the impact of different types of situations.

What are the Approaches Used in Measuring Personality?

Two dominant theoretical frameworks and assessment tool in identifying and classifying personality:

1. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - the most widely used personality framework.
 Individuals are classified as:
 Extraverted or Introverted (E or I) – Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and
assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy.
 Sensing or Intuitive (S or N) – Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order, and they
focus on details. Intuitives rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture”
 Thinking or Feeling (T or F) – Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling
types rely on their personal values and emotions.
 Perceiving or Judging (P or J) – Judging types want control and prefer order and structure.
Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.
 INTJs are visionaries. .
 ESTJs are organizers.
 ENTPs are conceptualizers.
 Weakness of the test:
 It forces a person into either one type or another. There are no in-betweens.
 Results from the MBTI tend to be unrelated to job performance.
 Strength of the test:
 A valuable tool to increase self-awareness and providing career guidance, but because results tend
to be unrelated to job performance, managers should consider using the Big Five Personality
Model, for job candidates instead.

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CHARACTERISTICS FREQUENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH EACH TYPE

SENSING TYPES INTUITIVE TYPES
ISTJ – Most Responsible ISFJ – Most loyal INFJ – Most INTJ – Most independent
“Doing what should be “A high sense of duty” contemplative “Everything has room for
done” “An inspiration to others improvement”
ISTP – Most pragmatic ISFP – Most artistic INFP – Most idealistic INTP – Most conceptual
INTRO- “Ready to try anything at “Sees much but shares” “Performing noble “A love for problem
VERTS once” services to society” solving”
ESTP – Most ESFP – Most generous ENFP – Most optimistic ESTP – Most inventive
spontaneous “You only go around once “Giving life an extra “One exciting challenge
“The ultimate realist” in life” squeeze” after another”
EXTRA- ESTJ – Most hard ESFJ – Most harmonizing ENFJ – Most persuasive ENTJ – Most
VERTS charging “Hosts and hostesses of “Smooth talking commanding “Life’s
“Life’s administrators” the world” persuaders” natural leaders”

2. The Big Five Personality Model

 Many research supports the Big Five Model, which proposes that five basic dimensions underlie all other
personality dimensions. The five basic dimensions:
Big Five Traits High scorers are… Low scorers are…
Extraversion – Comfort level with Outgoing, enthusiastic, and active; Aloof, quiet and independent;
relationships. They tend to be you seek novelty and excitement cautious and enjoy time alone
gregarious, assertive, and sociable.
Agreeableness – Individual’s Good nature, cooperative, tolerant, Cold, disagreeable, and
propensity to defer to others. sensitive, trusting, kind, and warm antagonistic, find it hard to
empathize with others
Conscientiousness – A measure of Responsible, organized, Easily distracted, disorganized and
reliability. dependable and persistent. unreliable, and careless.
Emotional stability – A person’s Calm, self-confident, and secure. Prone to stress and negative
ability to withstand stress. emotions, nervous, anxious,
depressed, and insecure.
Openness to experience – The Creative, imaginative, curious and Practical, conventional, skeptical
range of interests and fascination artistically sensitive. and find comfort in the familiar.
with novelty.

 How do the Big Five Traits Predict Behavior at Work?

Big Five Traits Relevance to Work

Extraversion  Better interpersonal skills  Strong predictor of leadership
 Greater social dominance emergence in groups
 More emotionally expressive
Agreeableness  Better liked  More compliant and conforming
 Better in interpersonally-oriented jobs such as  More satisfied in their jobs and likely to
customer service engage in OCB
Conscientiousness  Higher level of job knowledge  Organized and structured
 Greater effort and persistence  Most consistently related to job
 Live longer because they take better care of performance
themselves
Emotional  Strongly related to life satisfaction, job  Less hypervigilant
stability satisfaction, and low stress level
Openness  Increased learning  More creative
 Likely to be effective leaders and more  More flexible and autonomous
comfortable with ambiguity
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Undesirable Personality Traits Relevant to OB

 With the exception of neuroticism, the Big Five Traits are called socially desirable, we would be glad to
score high on them. Research have found that three other socially undesirable traits, which we all have in
varying degrees, are relevant to organizational behavior. They are Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and
psychopathy.
 The Dark Triad – so called, owing to their negative nature.
o Machiavellianism – behavior directed at gaining power and control of others and believes that
ends can justify means.
o Narcissism - the tendency to be arrogant, has a grandiose sense of self-importance, require
excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.
o Psychopathy - the tendency for a lack of concern for others and a lack of guilt or remorse when
their actions cause harm.
 Five additional aberrant (means, straying from the right way) compound traits based on the Big Five:
o Antisocial people – are indifferent and callous toward others.]
o Borderline people – have low self-esteem and high uncertainty
o Schizotypal individuals – are eccentric and disorganized
o Obsessive compulsive people – are perfectionists and can be stubborn, yet they attend to details,
have a strong work ethic, and may be motivated by achievement.
o Avoidant invididuals – feel inadequate and hate criticism.

Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB:

 Core Self-Evaluation (CSE) – the degree to which a person likes or dislikes himself/ herself, whether
capable and effective and in control. People who have positive CSE see themselves as effective, capable
and in control.
 Self-Monitoring – the ability of a person to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.
People high in SM show considerable adaptability in different situations.
 Proactive Personality – the ability to identify opportunities, show initiative, take action and persevere until
change occurs. More likely to be seen as leaders, achieve career success.
 Type A Personality – being competitive, ambitious, impatient, and can do task against opposing situations
 Type B Personality – having patient, relaxed, and easy-going behavior

VALUES

Values – are basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially
preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence (Robbins and Judge, 2019).
 Values contain a judgmental element because they carry an individual’s idea about what is right, good, or
desirable
 Values have content and intensity attributes,
o The content attribute tells a mode of conduct or end-state is important.
o The intensity attribute specifies how important it is.

Value System – the rank of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity.

 When we rank an individual’s values in terms of their intensity, we obtain that person’s value system.
 Values tend to be relatively stable and enduring.

The Importance of Values to the Workplace

 Values lay the foundation for the understanding of attitudes and motivation.
 They influence our perception.
 Values influence attitudes and behavior.

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Instrumental and Terminal Values in the Rokeach Value Survey

TERMINAL VALUES INSTRUMENTAL VALUES
 Comfortable life  Ambitious
 Exciting life  Broad minded
 Sense of accomplishment  Capable
 World at peace  Cheerfulness
 World of beauty  Cleanliness
 Equality  Courageous
 Family security  Forgiving
 Freedom  Helpfulness
 Happiness  Honesty
 Inner harmony  Imaginative
 Mature love  Independent
 National security  Intellectual
 Pleasure  Logical
 Salvation  Loving
 Achievement  Affection/love
 Friendship  Intelligence
 Prosperity  Obedience
 Self-respect  Politeness
 Social respect  Responsibility
 Wisdom  Self-control

The Link between Personality and Values to the Workplace

 The Person-Job Fit

Personality Job-Fit Theory by John Holland identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit
between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.
 Holland’s Typology of Personality and Examples of Congruent Occupations
Type Prefers Personality Characteristics Congruent Occupations
Realistic ..physical activities that Shy, genuine, persistent, stable, Mechanic, drill press
require skill, strength, and conforming, practical operator, assembly-line
coordination worker, farmer
Investigative ..activities that involve Analytical, original, curious, Biologist, economist,
thinking, organizing, and independent mathematician, news
understanding reporter
Social ..activities that involve Sociable, friendly, cooperative, Social worker, teacher,
helping and developing understanding counselor, clinical
others psychologist
Conventional ..rule-regulated, orderly, Conforming, efficient, practical, Accountant, corporate
and unambiguous activities unimaginative, inflexible manager, bank teller, file
clerk
Enterprising ..verbal, activities in which Self-confident, ambitious, Lawyer, real estate agent,
there are opportunities to energetic, domineering public relations specialist,
influence others and attain Imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, small business manager
power emotional, impractical
Artistic ..ambiguous and Imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, Painter, musician, writer,
unsystematic activities that emotional, impractical interior decorator
allow creative expression
 Significance: Satisfaction is highest and turnover is lowest when personality and occupation are in
agreement.

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 Person-Organization Fit
The person-organization fit essentially argues that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that
match their values, and they leave organizations that are not compatible with their personalities.
 Research on person-organization fit has also looked at whether people’s values match the
organization’s culture.
 This match predicts job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and low turnover.

Cultural Values
Hofstede’s Framework for assessing cultures has five value dimensions of national culture:
a. Power distance: the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is
distributed unequally.
b. Individualism versus collectivism: individualism is the degree to which people in a country prefer to act as
individuals rather than as members of groups; collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework in which
people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.
c. Masculinity versus femininity: masculinity is the degree to which the culture favors traditional masculine
roles such as achievement, power, and control, as opposed to viewing men and women as equals. Femininity is
a national culture that indicates little differentiation between male and female roles; a high rating indicates that
women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society.
d. Uncertainty avoidance: a national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society feels
threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them.
e. Long-term versus short-term orientation: long-term orientations look to the future and value thrift and
persistence. In a short-term orientation, people value the here and now; they accept change more readily and
don’t see commitments as impediments to change.
Research suggests Hofstede’s framework may be a valuable way of thinking about differences among people, but
we should be cautious about assuming all people from a country have the same values.

EMOTIONS AND MOODS

What Are Emotions and Moods?

 Affect is a generic term that covers a broad range of feelings that people experience, and encompasses both
emotions and moods.
 Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.
o Reactions to a person or caused by specific event
o Very brief in duration
o Specific and numerous in nature
o Accompanied by distinct facial expression
o Action oriented in nature
 Moods are less intense feelings than emotions and often arise without a specific event acting as a stimulus.
 Cause is often general and unclear, not directed to a p/e
 Last longer than emotions
 More general
 Not indicated by distinct expression
 Cognitive in nature

The Basic Emotions

 Many researchers agree on universal emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust.
 Moral Emotions – emotions that have moral implications because of our instant judgement of the situation
that evokes them (Robbins and Judge). They are learned in childhood, and they are not universal like
innate emotions. They differ between cultures, therefore, we need to be aware of the moral aspects of
situations that trigger our emotions and understand the context before we act.
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The Basic Moods

 Positive affect – a mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, alertness, and
elation at the high end and contentedness, calmness, and serenity at the low end.
 Negative affect – a mood dimension consisting of nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end and
boredom, depression, and fatigue at the low end.
 Sources of Emotions and Moods
o Personality
 Affect intensity – individual differences in the strength with which individuals experience their
emotions
 People differ in how predisposed they are to experience emotions intensely
 Affectively intense people experience both positive and negative emotions more deeply:
 When they’re sad, they’re really sad
 When they’re happy, they’re really happy
o Time of day – positive affect tend to peak at midmorning
o Day of the week – people are in better moods on weekend
o Stress – prolonged stress affect mood and emotional states
o Social activities – increase positive mood
o Sleep – quality affects mood
o Exercise – enhances positive moods
o Age – negative emotions occur less as people get older
 Sex – women show greater emotional expression than men

Emotional Labor

 Emotional labor – is an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal

transactions at work. The concept emerged from studies of service jobs.
 Felt vs displayed emotions: Felt emotions – an individual’s actual emotions; and displayed emotions –
those that the organization requires workers to show and considers appropriate in a given job.
 Displaying fake emotions requires us to suppress real ones.
o Surface acting – hiding inner feelings and hiding emotional expressions in response to display
rules.
o Deep acting – trying to modify our true inner feelings based on display rules.
 Doing this is exhausting, so it is important to give employees who engage in surface displays a chance to
relax and recharge.

Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) - is a person’s ability to perceive and understand one’s own emotions and that of
others, and regulate emotion to enhance living.
 Several studies suggest EI may play an important role in job performance.
 Dimensions of EI:
o Self-awareness
o Managing emotions
o Motivating oneself
o Empathy
o Social skills

Emotion Regulation Techniques:

Emotion regulation – means to identify and modify the emotions you feel.
Researchers of emotion regulation often study the strategies people employ to change their emotions.
 Surface acting does not change the emotions, so the regulation is minimal

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 Deep acting is less psychologically costly than surface acting because the employee is actually trying
experience the emotion. Emotion regulation through deep acting can have a positive impact on work
outcomes.
 Suppressing initial emotional responses to situation
 Acknowledging and re-evaluating events after they occur
 Cognitive reappraisal or reframing our outlook on an emotional situation
 Social sharing or venting
Despite the promise of these techniques, the best way to a positive work place is to recruit positive-minded
individuals and train leaders to manage their moods, job attitudes, and performance.
OB Applications of Emotions and Moods
 In selection – consider EI in hiring employees
 In decision making – positive moods and emotions seem to help decision making.
 In creativity – people in good moods tend to be more creative than people in bad moods
 In motivation – studies suggest that organizations that promote positive moods at work are likely to have
more motivated workers.
 In leadership – excited leaders may be more likely to energize their subordinates and convey a sense of
efficacy, competence, optimism, and enjoyment.
 In negotiation – a negotiator who hides anger has an advantage over opponent
 In customer service – employee’s emotions may transfer to the customer
 In job attitudes – people who had a good mood at work tend to be in a better mood at home
 In deviant workplace behaviors – negative emotions can lead to deviant workplace behaviors

How Managers Can Influence Moods

 Use humor and give employees small tokens of appreciation for work well done
 When leaders are in good moods, group members are more positive, and cooperate more.
 Selecting positive team members can have a contagion effect as positive moods transmit from team
member to team member.

Seatwork 3 (10 pts)

From the list of terminal values and instrumental values according to the findings of Rokeach, list the top five (5) most
important terminal values to you and your top five (5) most important instrumental values to you to achieve that
end states.
 My most important terminal values:
1.
2. etc
 My most important instrumental values:
1.
2. etc.

Sources: Robbins and Judge (2016), Organizational Behavior, 17th. Pearson.

Griffin, et al (2019), Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 12th ed., Cengage.
DuBrin, Andrew J. (2009), Fundamentals of Organizational Behavior. 4th ed., Cengage.