Foundations Of Individual Behavior

Foundations of Individual Behavior Each of us is a puzzle, unique in shape and fit. Every person is an organization is different from everyone else.

Company to Employee Attitude Change Change in company attitude to employees: Freeze on hiring or lay offs

[not filling positions when employees

leave, etc]

Cutting of employee ‘perks’

[club memberships, company cars,

Stock options, etc.]

Cutting employee benefits

[bonus, sick leave, holidays, housing,

health insurance, retirement, pension contributions, etc.]

Pay cuts ‘Time Out’

[10% cut in basic pay, removal of allowances, etc] [year at reduced pay and a guarantee of a job when employee returns]

Employee to Company Attitude Change Change in company:

employee

attitude

toward

Low level of morale Less loyalty than 20 years ago Easy movement from one company to another Company vs Employee Battle: Each side wants to get more from, but give less to, the other.

People in Organizations The key to knowing how businessemployee relationships might or might not work is an understanding of people in organizations and the various elements and characteristics that contribute to determining how and in what form they are willing to engage in behaviors that will benefit the organization.

People in Organizations Psychological Contract

is a set of expectations regarding what the employee will contribute to the organization and what the organization, in return, will provide to the employee.

The Psychological Contract

People in Organizations Contributions

made by the employee to the organization may include: Effort Ability Loyalty Skills Time Competencies

People in Organizations Inducements

are tangible and intangible rewards provided by the organization to the employee for contributions made, such as: Pay Benefits Promotion Opportunities Career Opportunities Training Opportunities Flexible Work Schedules Status Job Security [See Figure 3.1, page 59]

People in Organizations If organizations want value from their employees, they need to provide the right inducements. Problems come up because: Organizations can no longer promise permanent jobs to employees. Cultural differences due to globalization of jobs and workforces cause difficulties. Problems occur when international managers return to their home workforce after a period of time.

The Person-Job Fit The Person-Job Fit

is the extent to which the contributions made by the individual match the inducements offered by the organization.

The Person-Job Fit An employee has specific needs to be filled and job-related behaviors and abilities to contribute. If the organization can take advantage of those behavior and abilities and fulfill the employee’s needs (through inducements), then a person-job fit will be achieved.

The Person-Job Fit Difficult to achieve the ‘perfect fit’ because: Hiring procedures are not perfect. Performance measures are very subjective for different managers. People and organizations change over the years. Each person is unique in attitude (which is very difficult to measure) and personality.

Individual Differences

Individual Differences

are personal attributes that vary from one person to another. Differences may be physical, psychological or emotional. These differences make individual employees unique.

Individual Differences Basic categories of individual differences include: Personality Attitudes Perception Creativity

Personality and Organizations Personality

is the relatively stable set of psychological attributes that distinguish one person from another. Nature vs Nurture argument: how much do we inherit from our parents and how much are we shaped by our environment?

Personality and Organizations The ‘Big Five’ Personality Traits are a set of fundamental traits that are especially relevant to organizations. They include:

Agreeableness Conscientiousness Negative Emotionality Extraversion Openness [See Figure 3.2, page 64]

Big Five” Personality Framework“

Personality and Organizations Trait 1 – Agreeableness – the ability to get along with others. Highly agreeable people are likely to develop good working relationships with colleagues, customers, suppliers, and others involved with the organization.

Personality and Organizations Trait 2 – Conscientiousness – the number of goals on which a person focuses. More conscientious people tend to be higher performers than less conscientious people. People who concentrate on fewer goals at one time seem to be organized, systematic, careful, thorough, responsible and selfdisciplined.

Personality and Organizations Trait 3 – Negative characterized by insecurity.

Emotionality – is moodiness

and

People who have little negative emotionality are better able to deal with stress.

Personality and Organizations Trait 4 – Extraversion – is the quality of being comfortable with all types of relationships. People who are sociable, talkative, assertive, and open to establishing new relationships. More likely to be attracted to jobs in areas of sales and marketing. Introversion – people who are uncomfortable in social situations which require developing relationships.

Personality and Organizations Trait 5 – Openness – the ability to accept new ideas and to change as a result of learning new information. Shows a person’s rigidity of beliefs and range of interests. People with a high level of openness are willing to listen to new ideas and to change their own ideas, beliefs, opinions or attitudes in response to new information.

Personality and Organizations Importance of ‘Big Five’ Traits to Managers: By identifying traits, managers are in a better position to understand why employees behave as they do and how they might react under certain situations. Managers must remember that this is not a ‘perfect system’. It has its roots in the US which may be culturally different from other countries. Other factors and traits are also likely to affect behavior in organizations.

Personality and Organizations Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [MBTI]: Carl Jung developed 16 personality classifications by differentiating people in terms of four categories: sensing, intuiting, judging and perceiving. Some organizations use the MBTI questionnaire to assess personality types. Seen as very useful for determining communication styles and interaction preferences. However, whether it is a reliable measure of personality attributes is questionable.

Personality and Organizations Emotional Intelligence is the extent to which people are self-aware, can manage their emotions, can motivate themselves, express empathy for others and possess social skills. Self-Awareness – person’s capacity for being aware of how they are feeling. Managing Emotions – person’s ability to balance anxiety, fear and anger so that they do not overly interfere with getting things done. Motivating Oneself – person’s ability to remain optimistic and to continue striving in the face of setbacks, barriers and failure. Empathy – person’s ability to understand how others are feeling even without being told. Social Skill – person’s ability to get along with others and to establish positive relationships.

Personality and Organizations Other personality traits may influence behaviors in organizations: Locus of Control Self-efficacy Authoritarianism Machiavellianism Self-esteem Risk Propensity

Personality and Organizations Locus of Control

– the extent to which people believe their circumstances are a function of either their own actions or external factors beyond their control. ’If I work hard, I will succeed.’ [internal locus of control] ‘Everything is up to fate, chance, luck or other people’s behavior.’ [external locus of control]

Personality and Organizations Self-efficacy – a person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform a task. Person does a self-assessment of his or her ability to do a task. Depending on my personality, I may have selfconfidence [or not] that I can do that task. If I am confident, then I can concentrate my attention on performance.

Personality and Organizations Authoritarianism – is the belief that power and status differences are appropriate within hierarchical social systems such as organizations.

People who are highly authoritarian do what they are told because ‘you are the boss’. People who are less authoritarian are more likely to question things, express disagreement with the boss and even refuse to carry out orders if they are objectionable for some reason. Managers will be perceived differently by employees who are highly or less authoritarian.

Personality and Organizations Machiavellianism

– behavior directed at gaining power and controlling the behavior of others. Named after Niccolo Machiavelli who taught 16th century nobles how to gain power over people. More Machiavellian individuals tend to be rational, show no emotion, and may be willing to lie to get what they want. They put little emphasis on loyalty and friendship and enjoy manipulating others’ behavior. Less Machiavellian individuals are the opposite.

Personality and Organizations Self-esteem

– is the extent to which an individual believes he or she is a worthwhile and deserving individual. People who have high self-esteem are more likely to seek higher-status jobs, be more confident in their ability to achieve higher levels of performance and derive greater intrinsic satisfaction from their accomplishments. People who have low self-esteem are the opposite.

Personality and Organizations Risk Propensity – is the degree to which he or she is willing to take chances and make risky decisions.

People who have high risk propensity are more likely to experiment with new ideas or gamble with new products. Some managers may be ‘change agents’ trying to take the organization in a new direction. A manager’s ability to take risks depends on the environment within the organization he or she is working. People who have low risk propensity are the opposite.

Attitudes in Organizations Attitudes

are a person’s set of beliefs and feelings about specific ideas, situations or other people. They are the means through which people express their feelings. Good attitudes vs Bad attitudes

Attitudes in Organizations Attitudes Are Formed by a Variety of Forces: Our Personal Values Our Experiences Our Personality Understanding the basic structure of an attitude helps us to see how attitudes are formed and how they can be changed.

Attitudes in Organizations Attitude Structure: Viewed as stable dispositions to behave toward objects in a certain way [political candidates, restaurants, certain brands, etc]

Attitudes contain three components: Affect Cognition Intention

Attitudes in Organizations Affect

– a person’s affect is his or her feelings toward something. Similar to Emotion – it is something over which we have little or no conscious control. [love, hate, etc; liking one class, hating another or being indifferent]

Attitudes in Organizations Cognition – a person’s belief about the amount of knowledge he or she has about something. Cognitions are based on our perceptions of truth and reality.

Attitudes in Organizations Intention

– the part of an attitude that guides a person’s behavior. You intend to do well in Mgt 233. You intend to take another class with an instructor you had last semester.

Attitudes in Organizations Cognitive Dissonance – is the anxiety that

a person experiences when he or she simultaneously possesses two sets of knowledge or perceptions that are contradictory or incongruent. Are smoking and drinking alcohol dangerous? I hate my job – why do I stay? Cognitive dissonance will either have us stop the behavior or change our attitude about it.

Attitudes in Organizations Attitude Change

– not as stable (fixed) as personality attributes. If the object of an attitude changes, a person’s attitude toward that object may also change. [employee’s lack of work experience, negative attitude toward some company policy, etc]

Attitudes can also change when the object of the attitude becomes less important or less relevant to the person. [health insurance, salary] Deeply rooted attitudes have a long history and are very difficult, sometimes impossible, to change. [black vs white, family vs family, etc.]

Key Work-Related Attitudes People in an organization will form attitudes about many different things: Boss Employee benefits Salary Promotional opportunities Cafeteria food

Obviously, some attitudes are more important than others.

Key Work-Related Attitudes Job Satisfaction

– reflects the extent to which people find gratification or fulfillment in their work. Personal factors which can affect job satisfaction include an individual’s needs and goals, relationships with coworkers and supervisors, working conditions, work policies, compensation, etc.

Key Work-Related Attitudes Organizational

Commitment

– reflects a person’s identification with and attachment to an organization. Sometimes referred to as job commitment.

Key Work-Related Attitudes Organizations can help to create job commitment by: Treating employees fairly Providing reasonable rewards Providing job security Giving employees a ‘say’ in management Designing jobs to ‘fit’ employees

Affect and Mood in Organizations People who possess positive affectivity are upbeat and optimistic, have an overall sense of well-being and see things in a positive light. People who possess negative affectivity are generally downbeat and pessimistic, see things in a negative way and seem to be in a bad mood.

Perception in Organizations Perception is the set of processes by which an individual becomes aware of and interprets information about the environment. Two perceptual processes managers:  Selective perception  Stereotyping

relevant

to

Perception in Organizations Selective Perception is the process of screening out information that we are uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs.

Stereotyping is categorizing or labeling people on the basis of a single attribute.

[all women can do only certain tasks, all Arabs are rich, all Americans carry guns with them]

Basic Perceptual Processes

Perception in Organizations Attribution Theory

suggests that we attribute (give credit to) causes to behavior based on our observations of certain characteristics of that behavior.

Perception in Organizations The Attribution Process: Observe a behavior Evaluate that behavior in terms of: Degree of consensus – do other people in the same situation behave the same way? Degree of consistency – does the person behave in the same way at different times? Degree of distinctiveness - does the same person behave in the same way in different situations?

We attribute the behavior to internal (something inside the person) or external causes (by forces in the environment).

Types of Workplace Behavior Workplace Behavior is a pattern of action by the members of an organization that directly or indirectly influences organizational effectiveness.

Types of Workplace Behavior Three types of workplace behaviors that may influence organizational effectiveness: Performance Behaviors Dysfunctional Behaviors Organizational Citizenship

Types of Workplace Behavior Performance Behaviors – total set of work-related behaviors that the organization expects the individual to display.

For some jobs, performance behaviors can be defined narrowly and easily assessed. [factory assembly-line workers]

For other jobs, performance behaviors are more diverse and difficult to assess. [research scientists, etc]

Types of Workplace Behavior Dysfunctional Behaviors

– workrelated behaviors that detract from organizational performance. Most common ones are: Absenteeism – individual not showing up for work. Turnover – occurs when people quit their jobs.

Others causes may include: theft, sabotage, harassment, workplace violence.

Types of Workplace Behavior Organizational Citizenship – is the extent

to which the individual’s behavior makes an overall positive contribution to the organization. Employees who refuse to do anything outside their job [will not do overtime, train others, etc.] show poor organizational citizenship. Organizational ‘culture’ must be willing to promote, recognize and reward those behaviors that contribute to good organizational citizenship.