Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Heredity
• Environment
Personality
• Heredity
– Young Children
– Identical twins
– Job satisfaction
Personality
• Environment
– Culture
• Norms
• Attitudes
• Values
– Is Personality persistent?
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior
– The more consistent the characteristic and the more
frequently it occurs in diverse situations, the more
important the trait.
•Two dominant frameworks used to describe personality:
– Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)
– Big Five Model
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Most widely used instrument in the world.
• Participants are classified on four axes to determine one
of 16 possible personality types, such as ENTJ.
• Extroverted
• Agreeable
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional stability
• Openness to experience
Personality tests
• Big Five
• http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/
Measuring personality
• Self – reporting
• Observer – rating
• Projective measures
– Rorschach Inkblot Test
– Thematic apperception test
Problems????
Personality Test at work
• Positives
– Same criteria
– Record
– Specific results
– Fairness
– Comprehensive
– Scientific
Personality Test at work
• Negatives
– Can be fake
– Insufficient self insight
– May miss crucial aspects
– Interpretation
Personality and OB
• Cattell 16PF
– Self esteem
– Internals and externals
Positives vs Negatives
Major Personality attributes
influencing OB
• Machiavellianism
• Narcissism
More Relevant Personality Traits
• Self-Monitoring
– The ability to adjust behavior to meet external, situational
factors.
– High monitors conform more and are more likely to
become leaders.
• Risk Taking
– The willingness to take chances.
– May be best to align propensities with job requirements.
– Risk takers make faster decisions with less information.
Major Personality attributes
influencing OB
• Risk taking vs Risk avoidance
– Rapid
– Using less information
– Matches with growth
Major Personality attributes
influencing OB
• Type A
– Always moving and walking
– Feel impatient with the rate of events
– Try doing two things at one time
– Obsessed with numbers
– Cannot enjoy leisure
Major Personality attributes
influencing OB
• Type B
– Never suffer urgency
– Feel no need to display their achievements
– Can relax without guilt
• Quality vs Quantity
• Creativeness
• Ability to be hired
Major Personality attributes
influencing OB
• Proactive personality
– Leaders
– Challenge the status quo
– More likely to seek jobs
– More likely to leave jobs
Values?
Values
• A basic conviction that a specific conduct or
result is acceptable against an opposite
conduct or result.
– Intensity depends how important it is
– Learned in pure black and white form
– Stable and enduring
• Importance
Type of values
• Rokeach Value Survey (RVS)
– Terminal values
– Instrumental values
Source: Based on W. C. Frederick and J. Weber, “The Values of Corporate Managers and Their Critics: An Empirical Description and Normative Implications,” in
W. C. Frederick and L. E. Preston (eds.) Business Ethics: Research Issues and Empirical Studies (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1990), pp. 123–44.
Values Across Cultures
• Hofstede’s Framework of assessing culture
– Power distance
– Individualism vs collectivism
– Masculinity vs Femininity
– Uncertainty avoidance
– Long-term vs short-term orientation
Hofstede’s Framework: Power Distance
The extent to which a society accepts that power in
institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
•Low distance
•Relatively equal power
between those with
status/wealth and those
without status/wealth
•High distance
•Extremely unequal power
distribution between those
with status/wealth and
those without status/wealth
Hofstede’s Framework:
Individualism
• Individualism
– The degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than a
member of groups
• Collectivism
– A tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of
which they are a part to look after them and protect them
Versus
Hofstede’s Framework: Masculinity
• Masculinity
– The extent to which the society values work roles of achievement,
power, and control, and where assertiveness and materialism are also
valued
• Femininity
– The extent to which there is little differentiation between roles for
men and women
Versus
Hofstede’s Framework: Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels threatened by
uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid
them
• Loyalty
– Unthinking faithfulness
Loyalty and Integrity
• Society
– Anonymous / public speaking
• Civil association
– Lying to protect the group / group speak publically
• Organization
– Cover the wrong doing/ trying to persuade org. to put the
things right
• Self
– Protect self , seek advantage/ resign , refuse to be bought
Values- A Muslim perspective
• Self effort
– Economic development
• Riba
– Unreasonable/ welfare GOVT. concept
• Objective judgment vs subjective judgment
– Employ the whole man (Peter Drucker)
• Consensus building
– MBO
• Organization as community
– Modern economic system
• Past orientation
– Less planning/ Risk taking
• Legal / Moral
– Islamic Work Ethics (IWE)
Relationships Among Personality
Types
•Person-Organization Fit:
– The employee’s personality must fit with the organizational
culture.
– People are attracted to organizations that match their values.
– Those who match are most likely to be selected.
– Mismatches will result in turnover.
– Can use the Big Five personality types to match to the
organizational culture.
Person-Organization Fit
• Personality and organization culture
– Extroversion / aggressive team oriented
– Openness to experience / innovation, less
standardization
• Commitment
• Low turnover
Summary and Managerial
Implications
• Personality
– Screen for the Big Five trait of conscientiousness
– Take into account the situational factors as well
– MBTI® can help with training and development
• Values
– Often explain attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions
– Higher performance and satisfaction achieved when the
individual’s values match those of the organization.