Week 2 – Individual Attributes & Their Effects on Job Performance
Job Performance Fundamentals
• Central question: Why do people in the same job perform differently?
• Three-factor performance equation
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• Practical implication: managers can intervene on any of the three elements (e.g., training attributes, boosting effort, supplying resources).
Personality & Performance
• Personality = relatively stable characteristics shaping thoughts, feelings, behaviours.
• Dual origins
• Nature: genetic predispositions.
• Nurture: life and work experiences.
• Workplace relevance
• Predicts behaviour in “weak” (ambiguous / unstructured) situations more than in “strong” ones.
• Affects teamwork, leadership, stress response, communication.
• Three theoretical lenses
• Dispositional: behaviour driven mainly by traits.
• Situational: behaviour driven mainly by context.
• Interactionist: behaviour = traits + situation (dominant view in OB).
Big Five Trait Model (OCEAN)
• Openness to Experience – curious, imaginative, creative.
• Conscientiousness – organised, reliable, disciplined.
• Extraversion – outgoing, energetic, assertive.
• Agreeableness – cooperative, compassionate, trusting.
• Neuroticism (low score = Emotional Stability) – calm, secure, resilient.
• Empirical findings
• All five influence team processes and person–job fit.
• Conscientiousness = strongest universal predictor of performance.
• Extraversion helpful in social, sales, or leadership roles.
• Emotional stability critical in high-pressure environments.
Core Self-Evaluations (CSE)
• Overall appraisal of one’s self-worth and capability.
• Four integrated traits
• Self-esteem
• General self-efficacy
• Locus of control (internal vs. external)
• Emotional stability
• High CSE workers: confident, adaptable, persistent, intrinsically motivated; generally higher job and life satisfaction.
Affectivity
• Dispositional tendency toward positive or negative moods.
• Positive Affectivity (PA): vigorous, optimistic, creative.
• Negative Affectivity (NA): anxious, pessimistic, critical.
• Influences reactions to events, creativity, stress recovery, contagion of mood within teams.
Values
• Deep, enduring beliefs about what is important; learned from culture, family, experience.
• Guide choices, motivation, and ethical stance.
• Person–Organisation (P–O) fit
• Alignment between employee and organisational values → higher satisfaction, commitment, performance.
• Misfit → stress, turnover intentions.
• Generational trends (use cautiously—individual variation remains dominant):
• Boomers: loyalty, hard work.
• Gen X: independence, work–life balance.
• Millennials: purposeful work, development.
• Gen Z: flexibility, inclusion.
Attitudes and Commitment
• Attitude (ABC model)
• Affective = feelings.
• Behavioural intention = predisposition to act/say.
• Cognitive = beliefs/opinions.
• Antecedents: values + beliefs → Attitude → Intention → Behaviour.
• Organisational Commitment (three types)
• Affective: emotional attachment ("want to stay").
• Continuance: cost of leaving ("have to stay").
• Normative: moral obligation ("ought to stay").
• Strong commitment lowers turnover and absenteeism.
Job Satisfaction
• Overall evaluation of one’s job; can be global or facet-specific (pay, tasks, coworkers, etc.).
• Shaped by:
• Job factors – autonomy, task variety, justice, supervisor support.
• Individual traits – especially CSE, expectations.
• Consequences
• Higher OCB (helping, courtesy, voice).
• Lower turnover & absenteeism.
• Moderate, indirect link to task performance (happy ≠ always high performing, but unhappy usually underperform).
Organisational Citizenship, Turnover, Absenteeism
• Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB): discretionary, not formally rewarded, yet beneficial (e.g., mentoring new hires, suggesting improvements).
• Turnover
• Dissatisfied employees leave → replacement & knowledge-loss costs.
• Absenteeism
• Can signal stress, burnout, misfit.
• Managers can monitor satisfaction to predict & manage these outcomes.
Perception & Attribution
• Perception = process of interpreting sensory information. Shaped by perceiver (motivations, experience, mood), target (novelty, motion, size), and situation (time, social context, setting).
• Demonstration: scrambled-letter reading shows we process words holistically, illustrating top-down perception.
• Common perceptual biases
• Selective perception
• Halo / Horn effects
• Stereotyping
• Attribution = explaining causes of behaviour.
• Internal (dispositional) vs. External (situational).
• Kelley’s three attribution cues:
• Consistency – does behaviour repeat in same context?
• Consensus – do others behave similarly?
• Distinctiveness – does person behave the same elsewhere?
• Student-falls-asleep example
• High consistency + low consensus + low distinctiveness ⇒ internal cause (lazy).
• High consistency + high consensus + high distinctiveness ⇒ situational (boring lecture).
• Low consistency + low consensus + high distinctiveness ⇒ temporary circumstance.
• Attribution biases
• Fundamental Attribution Error – over-emphasise personal causes for others.
• Actor–Observer – attribute our acts to context, others’ to traits.
• Self-Serving Bias – success = me, failure = not me.
• Performance-appraisal biases: primacy, recency, halo, horn, similarity. Mitigation: training, behaviour logs, specific anchored rating scales.
Diversity, Bias & Inclusion
• Diversity brings broader perspectives → higher creativity, better decisions—IF inclusion exists.
• Unconscious bias can distort hiring, promotion, mentoring.
• Inclusive climate (feeling valued & respected) enhances communication, innovation, retention, and ultimately performance.
Recap & Practical Implications
• Individual attributes shaping performance:
• Personality (Big 5, CSE, Affectivity).
• Values, attitudes, commitment.
• Job satisfaction.
• Perception, attribution, bias.
• Managerial actions:
• Recruit for trait–role fit, train supervisors to recognise bias, design jobs for satisfaction, foster inclusive culture, use data to combat attribution errors.
Looking Ahead
• Next week: Motivation & Empowerment—read assigned materials and check Moodle for updates.