Organizational Behaviour Chapter II A

Chapter II.
Individual Behaviour
Organizational Behaviour, MBA

2020/21 Set BY Dr. Habtamu Dadi
Individual Behaviour
 Organizations are made up of their individual members.

The individual is a central feature of organizational
behavior and a necessary part of any behavioural
situation, whether acting in isolation or as part of a
group, in response to expectations of the organisation, or
as a result of the influences of the external environment.
 Where the needs of the individual and the demands of the
organisation are incompatible, this can result in
frustration and conflict.
 It is the task of management to integrate the individual
and the organisation, and to provide a working
environment which permits the satisfaction of individual
needs as well as the attainment of organisational goals.

Variables Influencing
Individual Behavior
The Person
• Skills & abilities The Environment
• Personality • Organization
• Perceptions • Work group
• Attitudes • Job
• Values • Personal life
• Ethics
Behavior
B = f(P,E)
Different individual behaviour

Individuals Behaviour
Some of the factors affecting Individual
Behavior in an organization are as follows:
1. Biographic factors
2. Ability
3. Personality
4. Perception
5. Attitude
6. motivation

2.1. Biographic characteristics
 All the human beings have certain
characteristics which are genetic in nature and
are inherited. These are the qualities which the
human beings are born with. These are the
characteristics which cannot be changed; at
the most, these can be refined to some extent.
 If the managers know about the inherited
qualities and limitations of the persons, they
can use their organizational behavior
techniques more effectively.

Biographic characteristics
 Biographic characteristics expected to affect
Job performance (employee productivity,
absence, turnover, deviance, citizenship and
satisfaction) are:-
- Physical character, age, gender, religion,
marital status, experience

Physical characteristics
 Such as height, size, shape, skin, weight
 Such factors may have effect on individual
performance.
 However such correlation is not scientifically
proven
Age
 The relationship between age and performance
is very important due to three reasons

 Wide believe that work performance decline
with increasing age

 Workforce is aging
 Retirement age

 Age Continue
 Some says
 Older people bring experience, judgment,
strong work ethical, and commitment to work

place
 As age increases turnover decreases and
satisfaction increases
 In general there are mixed views which
indicate as a manager the importance of

knowledge about age

 On the other hand most says
 younger people are expected to be more
energetic, innovative, adventurous, ambitious
and risk taking. Whereas old people are
supposed to be conservative, set in their own
ways and less adaptable (Psychologically)
 Wide believe that productivity decline with age
 Younger people are absent due to avoidable
reasons whereas older people absent due to
unavoidable reasons.

Gender
 Whether women perform as well as in jobs as
men do, is an issue which has initiated lot of

debates, misconceptions and opinions. The
traditional view was that man is tougher than
woman which is wrong.
 However, Research has proved that there are few
if any, important differences between man and

woman that will affect their job performance.
 Specially, in some area like problem solving
ability, analytical skill, competitive drive,

motivation, leadership, sociability and learning
ability, there are no consistent male-female
differences.
Gender continue
 Previously people attach some duties like
nurses to women, and duties like pilots,

defense job to men, (now with the passage of
time, we have males in these professions and vis-
versa).
 Gender has its impact on absenteeism. The
tendency to abstain from work is more in females

than in men, because historically, our society has
placed home and family responsibilities on the
females.
 However, still the effect of Gender needs
more study and it varies with culture

Religion
 Though there are no scientific studies to prove it and
we cannot generalize it, but religion and religion based

cultures play an important role in determining some
aspects of individual behavior, especially those aspects
which concern morals, ethics and a code of conduct.
The religion and culture also determine attitudes
towards work and towards financial incentives.
 People who are highly religious are supposed to have high
moral values e.g. they are honest, they do not tell lies or talk
ill of others, they are supposed to be contended. But there is
another side of the picture also. Though there are no
evidences but it has been observed that sometimes people
who are highly dishonest and immoral are more religious as
compared to the others.

Marital Status:
 There are not enough studies to draw any conclusion as to
whether there is any relationship between marital status

and job performance. Research has consistently indicated
that as marriage imposes increased responsibilities, to
have a steady job becomes more valuable and important.
 Married employees have fewer absences, less turnover
and more job satisfaction as compared to unmarried

workers. But no research has so far identified the causes
for this.

Experience:
 The impact of seniority on job performance is
an issue which is subject to a lot of

misconceptions and speculations. Work
experience is considered to be a good
indicator of employee productivity. Research
indicates that there is a positive relationship
between seniority and job performance.
Moreover studies also indicate a negative
relationship between seniority and
absenteeism.

2.2. Ability as foundation of Individual Behaviour
 It is self-evident that different occupations

require different skills, competencies and
abilities.
 It is also the case that individuals vary with
regard to their mental abilities and the extent to
which they apply them at work. /we aren’t
created equal/
 We aren’t all equal in abilities does not imply
that some individuals are inherently inferior to
others.


 Everyone has strengths and weaknesses that
make him or her relatively superior or inferior to
others in performing certain tasks or activities.
 From management stand point the issue is not
whether people differ in terms of their abilities.

They clearly do.
 The issue is knowing how people differ in
abilities and using that knowledge to increase

the likelihood that an employee perform his or
her job well.

What does Ability mean?
Ability is an individual capacity or capability to
perform the various tasks in the job. It is a
current assessment of what one can do.
An individual’s overall abilities are essentially
made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and
physical.
 Intellectual: abilities needed to perform mental
activities- for thinking, reasoning, and problem

solving.
 Physical: capacity to do task that demand
strength.

Physical abilities
Physical abilities include a person’s strength,

manual skill, leg strength and the like.
 If the performance of a particular job
requires some specific physical abilities, it is

the duty of the management to identify the
employees having those abilities. This is
accomplished by either careful selection of
people or by a combination of selection and
training.

 Ability directly influences an employee’s level
of performance. Management desire to get
high performing employee.
 So for this:
 An effective employee selection
 Promotion and transfer should be related to
ability
 Matching employee and incumbent ability

2.3. Personality
 By personality we don’t mean the physical appearance
of a person.
 Psychologists are not concerned with a smart person,
with a smiling face and a charming personality.

 Psychologist consider personality as a dynamic
concept describing the growth and development

of a person’s whole psychological system. Rather
than looking at parts of the person, personality
looks at some aggregate whole that is greater
than the sum of the parts

 Personality refers to individual difference in
characteristics pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving
 Personality is defined as the sum total of ways in which
an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
 Personality generally refers to personal traits such
as dominance, aggressiveness, persistence and
other qualities reflected through a person’s
behaviour. Some personality traits like physical built
and intelligence are biological in nature but most
traits like patience, open mindedness, extrovertness
etc. can be learned.

Why Psychologists interested in
Personality
 Psychologists are interested in what
differentiates one person from another and why
we behave the way that we do.
 An individual’s personality determines:-
 the types of activities that he or she is suited for.
People who are open minded seem to work out

better in bargaining agreements than people
who are narrow minded.
Similarly people who are extroverts and outgoing
are more likely to be successful as managers than
those who are introverts

 We study personality in Organizational
Behavior because it impacts a number of
important work outcomes.
 We can attempt to measure personality
through a variety of methods. Often these

methods are utilized in the hiring process to
assist in hiring the right person for the job
and the organization.


Measuring personality
 Personality test measures those relatively
enduring aspects of an individual which
distinguish them from other people, making
them unique.
 Main ways in which personality is measured:
1. self-report survey
2. Observer-ratings surveys

 Self-report surveys:- Completed by individual
and is most common. Individuals answer
questions that determine what type of
personality he/she have.
 Observer rating:- instead of individual
coworker could do the rating,

Personality Determinants /traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s

behavior
An individual’s personality is the result of both
heredity, environment and situation.
 Heredity refers to factors determined at
conception (physical characteristics, gender). The

ultimate explanation of an individual’s
personality is the molecular structure of the
genes, located in the chromosomes.
 Physical environment determines cultural
development and to the extent, that culture
in turn determines personality, a relationship
between personality and environment
becomes clear (cultural & social)
• culture in which we are raised
• norm among the family
• friends ,and social groups

 Situation The type of specific situation which
a person encounters also equally shapes the
type of personality characteristics.

Personality Traits
 The dominant model in describing personality
is the Big Personality Traits
 The five big personality tests measure
intensity of your behaviors in these five areas.

Big Personality Traits
There are five Big Personality Traits which have

a significant impact in individual’s life. They
are as follows:
 Extraversion. The extraversion dimension
captures our comfort level with relationships.

Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive,
talkative, noticeable, active and sociable.
Introverts tend to be reserved, shy, silent and
quiet.


 Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension
refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to
others. How do you react to others’ opinions?
When you agree to them easily, you are
considered agreeable. Highly agreeable people
are cooperative, warm, tolerant, kind, and
trusting.
 People who score low on agreeableness are
suspicious, unfriendly, self centered,
uncooperative, and antagonistic.

 Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness
dimension is a measure of reliability. This
refers to the extent to which people are
responsible and dependable in their work and
life. A highly conscientious person is
responsible, organized, dependable, self
disciplined and punctual, persistent,
achievement oriented. Those who score low
on this dimension are easily distracted,
disorganized, and unreliable.

 Emotional stability. The emotional stability
dimension—often labeled by its converse,
neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand
stress, aggressive, calm, self-confident,
depressed, irritable. It is the tendency to
experience negative emotions.
 People with positive emotional stability tend to
be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with
high negative scores tend to be nervous,
anxious, depressed, and insecure.

 Openness to change/experience. The openness to
experience dimension addresses range of interests
and fascination with novelty. This refers to the
extent to which people are more imaginative,
creative, curious, sensitive, and intellectualism.
 Extremely open people are creative, curious, and
artistically sensitive.
 Those at the other end of the category are
conventional, find comfort in the familiar, less

creative, less curious and no flexibility.
 When you accept new thoughts, ideas and changes
you open for change.

 However, you are considered close to change when
you avoid new experiments and follow rules and

regulations very strictly

How do the Big five traits predict
behavior at work?
 Research shows that big five has found relationships
between these personality dimensions and job
performance.
 Evidence shows that individuals who are
dependable, reliable, careful, systematic, able to
plan, organized, hardworking, persistent, and
achievement oriented tend to have higher job
performance in most situations.
 In addition employee who score higher in
conscientiousness develop higher level of
knowledge , and such people exert greater effort on
their job.

Self Evaluation Exercise
 Class discussion
- What is my personality type?
- Take the test for your self.
- Be as honest as you can, only you will see the
results.
- List the answers on the chart.
- Evaluate the results.
- Do you concur?
- Do you understand yourself?
Other Key Personality Traits Relevant to Work Behavior
 i) Self Esteem:
 ii) Locus of Control:
 iii) Self Efficacy:
 iv) Self-Monitoring:
 v) Emotional Intelligence:

i) Self Esteem
• The perceptions people have of themselves and their

relationships to people and other aspects of life.
 Self esteem refers to the individuals’ self
worthiness and the extent to which they
regard themselves as capable, successful,
important and worthwhile. People who feel
good about themselves will always produce
good results.

Self-Esteem
Feelings of Self Worth
Success tends Failure tends

to increase to decrease
self-esteem self-esteem
ii) Locus of Control
The extent to which a people tend to have control over their

own fate and life. There are two type of locus of control.
 The Internal Locus of Control refers to those who believe
that they control what happens to them and shape the

course of their evens in their lives,
Example “ I control what happens to me!”
 whereas the External Locus of Control believe that what

happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as
luck or chance. It is more oriented toward the world
around them.
Example “People and circumstances control my fate!”

Locus of Control
Internal External
I control what People and
happens to me! circumstances
control my fate!

iii) Self Efficacy
 Self-Efficacy - beliefs and expectations about one’s

ability to accomplish a specific task effectively.
 It refers to the belief that a person has in their own
capability to perform a specific task.
 People with high self-efficacy will prefer to have
moderate level of task difficulty, strong self
confidence and conviction in the chosen tasks and
possess high expectation in completing the
assignment across the entire situation.
 Being able to influence important aspects of one’s
world; the belief that one can accomplish what one
sets out to do.

iv) Self-Monitoring/evaluation
 A person’s ability to adjust his/her behavior to
external situational factors. People differ in the
degree to which they like or dislike themselves and
whether they see themselves as capable and
effective.
 High self-monitors.
- Sensitive to external cues.

- Behave differently in different situations.
 Low self-monitors.
- Not sensitive to external cues.

- Not able to disguise their behaviours

v) Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to
 (1) perceive emotions in the self and others,
 (2) understand the meaning of these emotions, and (3)
regulate one’s emotions
 Emotional intelligence (EI) is an assortment of skills,

capabilities, and competencies that influence a person’s
ability to cope with environmental demands and pressures.
 It is composed of five dimensions:

Five dimension of Emotional
intelligence
It consists of five main abilities:

a) Self-awareness/ Knowing one’s emotions: Self-awareness and
recognizing ones feelings as it occurs
b) Self-management/ Managing emotions: Handling feelings and
emotions appropriately to the relevant situations
c) Self-motivation/ Motivating oneself: Directing the feelings and
emotions in such a way to fulfilling the desired goals
d) Empathy/ Recognizing emotions in others: Empathizing and
understanding the feelings and emotions for others
e) Social skills/ Handling Relationships: Being able to interrelate,
communicate and work with others.
 Research Findings
- Several studies suggest EI plays an important role in job performance.
◦ High EI scores, not high IQ scores, characterize high performers.

2.4. Perception
 Perception is a process by which individuals

select, organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their
environment.

 What we perceive can be substantially
different from objective reality. For example,
all employees in a firm may view it as a great
place to work –favorable working conditions,
interesting job assignments, good pay,
excellent benefits, understanding and
responsible management- but as most of us
know it’s very unusual to find such
agreement.

Perception- continued
 “ The study of perception is concerned with

identifying the process through which we
interpret and organize sensory information to
produce our conscious experience of objects
and object relationship.”
 “ Perception is the process of receiving
information about and making sense of the
world around us. It involves deciding which
information to notice, how to categorize this
information and how to interpret it within the
framework of existing knowledge.

Why is perception important in the study of OB?
 Simply because people’s behavior is based on

their perception of what reality is, not on
reality itself.
 The world as it is perceived is the world that
is behaviorally important.

Factors That Influence Perception
 What you see in this
picture?
 How do you explain
the fact that

individuals may
look at the same
thing yet perceive it
differently?

Factors That Influence Perception
A number of factors operate to shape and

sometimes distort perception.
 There are three factors influencing
perceptions which are related to

 the perceiver,
 factors related to the target, or objects being
perceived
 Factors related to the situation or context.

Factors influencing Perception
Factors in the
. perceiver
- Attitudes
- Motives
- Interests
- Experience
- Expectations
Perception
Factors in the
Factors in the Target
situation - sounds
- Time - Size
- Work Setting - Background
- Social Setting - Proximity
- Similarity
1.Factors Related to the Perceiver
When individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret
what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced
by the personal characteristics of the individual perceivers.
Personal characteristics that affect perception include:-
 person’s attitude
 Personality
 motives
 Interest
 past experience,
 expectation
For instance:
 If you expect police officers to be authoritative, young
people to be lazy, or individual holding public office to be

unscrupulous, you may perceive them as such, regardless of
their actual traits.
2. Factors Related to the Target
 Characteristics of the target we observe can

affect what we perceive. Loud people are
more likely to be noticed in a group than
quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive
or unattractive individuals. Because we don’t
look at targets in isolation, the relationship of
a target to its background also influences
perception, as does our tendency to group
close things and similar things together.
3. Factors Related to the Situation
Situation matters too the context in which we

see objects or events.
 Factors in the situation are time, work
setting and social setting. The time at which

we see an object or event can influence our
attention, as can location, light, heat, or any
number of situational factors.

Importance of Perception in OB
 People in organisations are always assessing

others during employment interview,
performance appraisal, assessing level of effort,
productivity, absenteeism and turnover, job
satisfaction and others perception is important.
These have important effect on the organisation.

Person Perception
 Attribution Theory
 Attribution theory tries to explain the ways in
which we judge people differently, depending

on the meaning we attribute to a given
behavior.
 It suggests that when we observe an
individual’s behaviour we attempt to

determine whether it was internally or
externally caused.

Internally caused are those we believe to be
under the personal control of the individual.
Eg. If one of your employee is late for work and
you attributed this to party and oversleeping
Externally caused behaviour is what we

imagine the situation forced the individual to
do .
Eg. If his lateness is attributed to automobile
accident that tied up traffic

 That determination however, depends largely on
three factors
1. Distinctiveness:- refers to whether an individual
displays different behavior in different
situations
2. Consensus. If everyone who is faced with a
similar situation responds in the same way, we
can say the behavior shows consensus.
3. Consistency: an observer looks for consistency
in a person’s actions. Does the person respond
the same way overtime?

The link between perception and
individual decision making
 Individual in organization make decision.
They make decision among different
alternatives.
 But how individuals in organizations make
decision and the quality of their final choices

are largely influenced by their perceptions.
Decision making occurs as a reaction to a
problem and the way we interpret and
evaluate information.

2.5. Attitude
Attitude is a state of mind of an individual

towards something’s. It may be defined as a
tendency to feel and behave in a particular
way toward objects, people or events.
 An attitude refers to our opinions, beliefs,
and feelings about aspects of our

environment.
“Attitude is a little things that makes a big

difference” Winston Churchill
 Attitudes are evaluative/value statements, either favorable
or unfavorable, concerning objects, people, or events.
They reflect how we feel about something.
When I say “I like my job” I am expressing my attitude
about work.
 Attitudes are complex. If you ask people their attitude
toward religion, or their job, you may get simple answer.

But the reason underlying the response are complex.
In order to fully understand attitudes, we need to consider
their fundamental properties or components.

 Attitudes determine how people
◦ Perceive the work environment
◦ Interact with others
◦ Behave on the job
Attitude varies in several ways:
- Direction for or against something
- Degree- favourableness
- Intensity- degree of confidence

Components of Attitude
Three basic components (Cognition, affect and
behaviour)
1. Cognitive or informational components: it
consists of beliefs, values, ideas and other
information a person has about the attitude
of objects.
It is aspect of attitude that is a description of or
belief in the way things are.
Eg. ‘My pay is low’


2. Affective or emotional: it involves the
persons feelings, of like or dislike toward the
attitude of objects.
Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of
an attitude and its reflected in statement
Eg. ‘I am angry over how little I am paid’

3. Behavioural Components: tendency of a
person to behave in a particular manner
toward the attitude of objects.
 Refers to an intention to behave in a certain
way to ward someone or some thing

 Eg. ‘I am going to look for another job that
pays better’

Components of an Attitude

Components of attitude are closely related
.
Cognitive= evaluation
My supervisor gave a promotion to the
coworkers who deserved it less than
me. My supervisor is unfair
Negative
attitude
Affective= feeling to wards
I dislike my supervisor superviso
r
Behaviour= action
I am looking for the work, I have
complained about my supervisor to
any one who listen.

Sources of Attitudes
 Attitudes are formed through various

sources. We acquire or learn from parents,
teachers, peer group members.

Job related Attitudes
 Specific attitudes predict specific behavior

 A person can have thousands of attitudes,
but OB focuses our attention on a very

limited number of work related attitude.
 There are three types of job-related attitudes
such as job satisfaction, job involvement, and

organizational commitment.

Job Satisfaction:
 Job Satisfaction: describe a positive feeling
about a job, resulting from an evaluation of
its characteristics. A person with a high level
of job satisfaction holds positive feelings
about his or her job, while dissatisfied person
holds negative feelings.
 When people speak of employee attitude they
usually mean job satisfaction.
 Job Satisfaction = positive attitude toward
one’s job

Job Involvement
 Job Involvement: is the degree to which
people identify psychologically with their job
and consider their perceived performance
level important to self-worth. Employee with
a high level of job involvement strongly
identify with really care about the kind of
work they do.

Organizational commitment
 Organizational commitment:
Is state in which an employee identifies a
particular organization and its goals and
wishes to maintain membership in the
organization.
Organizational Commitment = loyalty to and
heavy involvement in one’s organization
Thee separate dimension of commitment:-
Affective, continuance, normative.

 Affective commitment is an emotional
attachment to the organization and a belief in
its value.
 Continuous commitment is the perceived
economic value of remaining with an

organization compared to leaving it.
 Normative commitment is an obligation to
remain with the organization for moral or

ethical reasons.


Organizational Behaviour Chapter II A

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Organizational Behaviour Chapter II A

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter II.

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

 Organizations are made up of their individual members.

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

 Such factors may have effect on individual

is very important due to three reasons

with increasing age

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

strong work ethical, and commitment to work

indicate as a manager the importance of

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

men do, is an issue which has initiated lot of

if any, important differences between man and

ability, analytical skill, competitive drive,

nurses to women, and duties like pilots,

tendency to abstain from work is more in females

more study and it varies with culture

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

we cannot generalize it, but religion and religion based

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

whether there is any relationship between marital status

and more job satisfaction as compared to unmarried

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

an issue which is subject to a lot of

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

 It is self-evident that different occupations

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

whether people differ in terms of their abilities.

abilities and using that knowledge to increase

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

activities- for thinking, reasoning, and problem

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Physical abilities include a person’s strength,

requires some specific physical abilities, it is

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

with a smiling face and a charming personality.

concept describing the growth and development

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

 the types of activities that he or she is suited for.

People who are open minded seem to work out

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

through a variety of methods. Often these

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

coworker could do the rating,

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s

conception (physical characteristics, gender). The

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

intensity of your behaviors in these five areas.

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

There are five Big Personality Traits which have

captures our comfort level with relationships.

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA

Organizational Behaviour, MBA