CHAPTER 3

Perceiving ourselves
and others in
organisations
Self-Concept: How we perceive
ourselves.
 An individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations
 Self-enhancement
 Self-verification
 Social – Self

 ‘Who am I?’ and ‘How do I feel about myself?’

• Guides decisions and actions
Self-concept Characteristics
 Complexity
- identities that people perceive about themselves
 Consistency
- degree to which the individual’s identities require similar personal
attributes
 Clarity
- degree to which a person has a clear, confidently defined and stable
self-concept across time
Self-Concept and organizational
behavior
 Self-concept affects:
 Perceptual, decision processes and biases
 Employee motivation
 Team dynamics
 Leadership development
 Employee stress
Perceiving the world around us
 Perception is the process of receiving information about and,
making sense of it.
 Environmental stimulies
 Selective attention
 Emotional markers attached selected information
 Perceptual organization and interpretation
 Attitudes and behaviors
Specific Perceptual Processes and
Problems
 Stereotyping in organization
 Attribution Processes (internal factors or external factors)
 Self-fulfilling (perception influence reality
 Other perceptual effects
- Halo effect
- False-consensus effect
- Primacy effect
- Recency effect
Improving Perceptions

 Awareness of perceptual bias

 Improving self-awareness
 Meaningful interaction
Global mindset

 An individual’s ability to perceive, appreciate and

empathise with people from other cultures, and to
process complex cross-cultural information:
 adopting a global perspective
 empathising and acting effectively across cultures
 processing complex information about novel environments
 developing new multi-level mental models
Developing perception across boarders

1. Self-awareness activities: understand own values, beliefs and

attitudes
2. Compare mental models with people from other cultures
3. Cross-cultural training
4. Immersion in other cultures
CHAPTER 4
Workplace emotions,
attitudes and stress
Emotions in workplace
 Emotions influence almost everything we do at workplace.
 Emotions are physiological, behavioral, psychological
episodes experienced towards an object, person or event
that create a state of readiness.
 Perceptions,attitudes, behaviors, and decisions are
influenced by emotions
 Attitudes are judgements and emotions are experiences
 Types of emotions
Types of emotions
Managing emotions at workplace

 Emotional display norms across culture

 Emotional dissonance (emotional labor and surface acting)
 Emotional intelligence (AMAM)
 Outcomes and training
Job Satisfaction

 Person’s evaluation of his or her job and work context

 Job satisfaction and work behavior
 Job satisfaction and performance
 Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction
Building Organizational commitment
• Apply humanitarian values
Justice/support
• Support employee wellbeing

Shared
• Values congruence
values

• Employees trust organisational leaders

Trust
• Job security supports trust

Organisational • Know firm’s past/present/future

comprehension • Open and rapid communication

Employee • Employees feel part of company

involvement • Involvement demonstrates trust
Work related Stress and Its Management

 Remove the stressor:

 minimize or remove stressors
 Withdraw from the stressor:
 holidays, rest breaks
 Change stress perceptions:
 positive self-concept, humour
 Control stress consequences:
 healthy lifestyle, fitness, wellness, mindfulness, meditation
 Receive social support