OB Application 1 Exam Flashcards

A mix of key ideas form week 1, 2, and 3

What is personality?

Personality is represented by patterns of behavior that is enduring and consistent. It is what makes you distinctive and unique.

What is consistency (in terms of personality)?

It is something that is stable over time and across different situations.

What determines personality?

1. genetic/biological factors (What you’re born into)

2. situational/environment/experience (like education, culture)

3. Combination (interaction between nature and nurture.)

What is the trait (nomothetic) approach to personality?

that personality is made up of traits, which are a consistent style of emotion/behavior. (believes half of it comes from genetics)

What does Nomothetic mean?

Universal (something that everyone shares)

Is the trait approach to personality Nomothetic or Idiographic?

Its Nomothetic (universal)

What is the importance of Personality traits in OB?

They allow us to make predictions about someone’s behavior, and therefore their job performance (only about 10% accuracy though).

What is the Nomothetic approach to Personality?

It is the approach concerned with what we share with other (universal traits). It believes inherited characteristics are significant. It believes environmental factors have a small effect. It believes it can predict and measure personality type behaviors.

What are the Big Five trait clusters?

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

What is Openness?

It is the rigidity of beliefs and range of interest.

What is Conscientiousness?

It is the desire to impose order and precision.

What is agreeableness?

It is the ability to get along with others.

What is Neuroticism?

It is emotional instability (person is highly affected by the situation, if its good or bad)

What is on the other end of Openness?

Close Mindedness

What is on the other end of Conscientiousness?

Heedlessness

What is on the other end of Extraversion?

Introversion

What is on the other end of Neuroticism?

Emotional Stability

What is agentic Narcissism?

Narcissism that is focused on the self, only cares about how they are seen and strive to show that they brilliant, competent, etc. (power, intellect)

What is communal Narcissism?

Narcissism that seeks to raise status through “good works”. Helps others out to be seen as good or more important by others. (selflessness, generosity)

Is Narcissism always bad for an organization?

No, because if it is communal, you could use it for the good by encouraging them to help out others more, which is good for the org and good for the narcissists ego. It can also be the drive for change through their overabundant belief in self.

What are the characteristics of Psychopathy?

Having a lack of empathy, not able to feel remorse, tend to be manipulative.

What is Machiavellianism?

When someone is cunning and ruthless (sneaky and cold).

What is the Dark Triad of Personality?

Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism.

What determines whether or not a psychopath is successful?

Intelligence (more likely to succeed when adding this to the dark triad)

What is the idiographic approach to personality?

Focusing on what makes us each unique. (uses qualitative methods, explores subjective, unique experiences shaped by a persons environment).

Does the Idiographic/nurture approach to personality claim personality is static or flexible?

It claims it is flexible (aka, adaptable, changing, personality is based on the situation)

Does the Idiographic approach measure personality traits?

No, because they believe it is not possible to measure since people are uniquely different (there’s only one you).

What are examples of things that affect personality?

Family(nurture), peers(nurture), culture

What is the Combined approach to personality?

Seeing both someone’s genes and environment as influencing their personality. (the environment is the trigger for someone’s genes, and that place/situation decides whether or not their “nature” is expressed).

What is person job fit?

It is the idea that when someone’s personality is well suited to the demands of the job, their job performance and satisfaction is higher.

How do you assess personality?

Through Interviews (unreliable), personality questionnaires (easy to falsify), & assessment centers (is a combination of both above, Expensive, time consuming)

Can we predict job performance from personality?

No, they usually only predict accurately 10% of the time.

Why is diversity important for Organizations?

Because it enables better decisions, increases better job performance, helps bring about positive change.

Define Organization

a social system made of groups and people working together to meet a common goal.

What is the study of Organizational Behavior

The study and exploration of how and why people behave the way they do in organizational settings (uses scientific method).

Why do we study and use Organizational behavior?

To understand why certain patterns of behavior happen at organizations and to improve the employee-organization relationship.

What are the aspects of performance?

Productivity, absenteeism, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment

What are the four major dimensions of organizational citizenship?

1. Helping (voluntarily giving time and effort to help co-workers)

2. sportsmanship (fair play emphasis, respect for opponents, gracious in win/loss)

3. taking charge (being proactive)

4. compliance (supports rules/regulations)

What is the link between high Job satisfaction and high organizational performance

Organizational citizenship behavior

What is affective commitment?

Staying because you want to. When you want to stay with the org. because you identify with their goals and values (you have an emotional bond).

What is normative commitment?

When you stay because you should. When you feel a moral duty to stay (like if you boss personally helped you when sick, etc.) (you feel indebted, moral obligation)

What is continuance commitment?

When you stay because you need to. (Like if you can’t find another job/need the money)

What is emotional labor?

The effort it takes to handle your own emotions and others to meet the expectations of a job, relationship, etc.

What is the difference between surface level acting and deep level acting in emotional labor?

Surface level acting is when your true feelings contradict your displayed feelings. Deep-level acting is when you try to feel how you are presenting to feel.

What is Kurt Lewin’s famous OB equation?

B = f(P, E) Behavior is a function of the person and their environment.

What is the Hawthorne Effect?

When people change or improve their behavior because they know they are being watched.

What is the independent variable?

The variable that you manipulate to see how it affects the dependent variable.

If you were a manager and wanted to figure out how to get to a specific outcome, what scientific variable would you start thinking of?

You would start by thinking of the dependent variable since that would be the outcome you want, then working backwards to figure out what causes that, aka what’s the independent variable.

What is a mediating variable?

A variable that is the cause of the relationship between two parties/variables (If its full mediation and you take it away, relationship disappears)

What is a moderating variable?

A variable that changes the relationship between two parties/variables

What is Job embeddedness?

When you feel so connected to the organization that you feel like you can’t leave

In relation to Lewin’s equation B=f(P,E), what variable is organizational culture?

E, the environment

What is the definition of organizational culture?

It is the shared norms, values, and beliefs that shape the behavior and attitude of employees (pattern of behaviors)

What is Schein’s model of organizational culture

1. observable artifacts (what you see they value)

2. values (what they say they value)

3. basic assumptions (The invisible beliefs underneath the previous two layers)

What are examples of observable artifacts?

dress codes, office layout, company logos, furniture

What are examples of espoused values?

Mission statements, core value & policy handbooks

What are examples of underlying assumptions?

“people are naturally lazy”, “the boss always knows best”, “long hours = high performance”

Describe a strong organizational culture

A strong organizational culture has strongly practiced and shared values. Also shows that the observable artifacts, espoused values, and underlying values match.

What is a subculture?

A smaller cultural group withing the “main” cultural group

When would a subculture weaken the overall organizational culture?

It would weaken the overall organizational culture if it conflicts with it.

What is the effect of a strong organizational culture on management?

A stronger Org. culture lessens the need for management to guide employee behavior since it would naturally influence people to comply. (basically, less need for formal management control)

When can a strong organizational culture be bad?

It can be bad when innovation/adaptation is needed as high consistency of behavior does not encourage innovation/adaptation

When an environment is chaotic what happens to job performance for the firm with strong org. culture; the firm with weak org. culture?

The firm with the strong organizational culture would have lower job performance, the firm with weak organizational culture would have higher job performance.

What are the advantages of strong culture?

Makes that org. unique from others, allows employees to identify with the org., encourages desired behavior, creates stability within the org.

What are disadvantages of strong culture?

Makes mergers more difficult, attracts and retains the same kind of employees(can be bad), can be bad if it leads to extreme behaviors, makes adapting to changes in the environment more difficult.

Why do we create (organizational) culture?

We want to avoid uncertainty, we naturally want order

How does org. culture begin?

1. It starts with the founder, the founders hire and keep employees who think and feel the same way they do.

2. they teach the employees how to think like them, the founder.

3. The founders own behavior acts as a role model.

What becomes embedded into the org. culture when the org. succeeds?

The founders personality (because they see their vision/personality, as the main reason for success).

How is Culture managed/changed?

1. Selection- hiring candidates that best fit the org. and it’s values.

2. Top management- changes in leadership (monkey see, monkey do-how you behave influences others)

3. Socialization- employee training, onboarding (bootcamps that train people on the org’s values)

4. Reward systems- Rewarding/punishing certain behaviors (shows what org. values/does not condone)

How do you develop a culture that insights creativity?

1. Have a purposeful strategy

2. flexible & autonomous structure

3. Support it by rewarding & providing resources for it

4. Manage Behavior by how you handle mistakes & risk taking

5. Encourage open Communication