Personality

• Personality: sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.

  • Measuring personality can be used in hiring decisions and forecasting who is better for a job.

  • Personality determinants

    • Heredity: factors determined at conception; one’s biological, physiological and inherent psychological makeup.

    • Individuals personality has to do with heredity and the environment.

    • Personality traits: enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior.

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types.

  • 4 characteristics

    • Extroverted VS introverted

    • Sensing VS intuitive

    • Thinking VS feeling

    • Judging VS perceiving

  • Weakness: it forces people into being one way or the other, there is no in-between you are either introverted or extroverted.

  • Strength: good tool that provides career guidance and increases self-awareness.

• Big Five personality model: personality assessment model that taps 5 basic dimensions

  • Extroversion: personality dimension that describes someone who is sociable, gregarious and assertive.

  • Agreeableness: personality dimension that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative and trusting.

  • Conscientiousness: personality dimension that describes someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent and organized.

  • Emotional stability: personality dimension that characterizes someone as calm, self confident, secure (positive) VS nervous, depressed and insecure (negative).

  • Openness to experience: personality dimension that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity and curiosity.

  • How do the Big Five Traits predict behavior at work?

    

  • Other personality traits relevant to OB

    • Core-self evaluation: degree to which an individual likes/dislikes himself/herself as capable and effective, and whether the person feels in control of his/her environment or powerless over the environment.

    • Machiavellianism: degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance and believes that ends can justify means.

    • Narcissism: tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self importance, require excessive admiration and have a sense of entitlement.

    • Self-monitoring: personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his/her behavior to external, situational factors.

    • Risk-taking → managers in large organizations may be more willing to take risks than entrepreneurs.

    • Type A personality: aggressive involvement in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time and if necessary against the opposing efforts of other things other people

      • Are always moving, walking and eating rapidly

      • Feel impatient with the rate at which most events take place

      • Strive to think or do two of more things at once

      • Cannot cope with leisure time

      • Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire

    • Proactive personality: people who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action and persevere until meaningful change occurs.

  • Personality and situations

    • Situation-strength theory: theory indicating that the way personality translates into behavior depends on the strength of the situation.

    • Trait Activation Theory (TAT): theory that predicts that some situations, events or interventions “activate” a trait more than others.

Values

• Values: basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.

• Value system: hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity.

• Classifying values

  • Terminal values: desirable end-states of existence; the goals a person would like to achieve during their lifetime.

  • Instrumental values: preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values.

• Contemporary work values

  • More importance on challenge and advancement, career progression, job satisfaction, personal growth and autonomy also, loyalty and trust.

Linking an individual’s personality and values to the workplace

• Personality-job fit: theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.

• Person-organization fit: theory that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that match their values and leave when there is not compatibility.

Global implications

• Hofstede’s framework for assessing cultures

  • Power distance: national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.

  • Individualism VS collectivism

    • Individualism: national culture attribute that describes the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups.

    • Collectivism: national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.

  • Masculinity VS femininity

    • Masculinity: national culture attribute that describes the extent to which the culture favors traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control. Societal values are characterized by assertiveness and materialism.

    • Femininity: national culture attribute that indicates little differentiation between male and female roles; a high rating indicates that women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society.

  • Uncertainty avoidance: national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them.

  • Long-term orientation VS short-term orientation

    • Long-term orientation: national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift and persistence.

    • Short-term orientation: national culture attribute that emphasizes the present and accepts change.

• GLOBE framework for assessing cultures

  • Similar to Hofstede’s, but with 2 added dimensions:

    • Humane orientation

    • Performance orientation