Personality and Values in Organizational Behavior

Personality and Organizational Behavior

Overview

  • Personality involves the growth and development of a person's psychological system.
  • In organizational behavior (OB), personality is how people react to and interact with others at work.
  • Personality is used to forecast job suitability, though this isn't always the best approach.
  • Self-report surveys are commonly used to measure personality, but they can be biased.

Nature vs. Nurture

  • Personality comes from heredity (biological factors at conception) and environment (influences as we develop).
  • A recent meta-analysis suggests environment influences about 60% of personality, and heredity influences 40%.
  • Twin studies (twins separated at birth) have been used to test the role of heredity, revealing surprising similarities even when raised separately.
    • Example: Twins separated at birth vacationing in the same location, smoking the same cigarettes, and working in the same industry.

Early Personality Traits

  • Early researchers labeled common personality characteristics such as:
    • Submissive
    • Shy
    • Lazy
    • Ambitious
    • Loyal
    • Aggressive
  • These are still seen in society, but less commonly used in OB.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

  • Most common personality test used in organizations.
  • Assesses:
    • Extroversion vs. Introversion
    • Sensing vs. Intuitive
    • Thinking vs. Feeling
    • Perceiving vs. Judging
  • Individuals are assigned a personality type (e.g., INJ).
  • Limitations:
    • Binary (no scale; you're either one or the other).
    • Low test-retest reliability (can change types over time).
    • Not always related to job outcomes.
  • Binary nature may cause reliability issues for those with scores near the middle of the scale as scores can easily fluctuate, leading scores to move from one classification to another each time they take the exam.

The Big Five Model

  • More reliable than the MBTI.
  • Five personality traits:
    • Extroversion: Comfort level with relationships (outgoing vs. reserved).
      • Helpful in sales roles due to the comfort with relationships, but introversion is more helpful in researcher roles.
    • Agreeableness: Willingness to defer to others (cooperative, warm, trusting vs. antagonistic, cold, disagreeable).
      • High agreeableness can cause for groupthink.
      • Important in group settings, but less so in negotiations.
    • Conscientiousness: Reliability (responsible, organized, dependable, persistent vs. distracted, disorganized, less reliable).
      • Paramount positions require conscientious individuals.
    • Emotional Stability: Ability to withstand stress (calm, self-confident, secure vs. anxious, less secure).
      • People low on emotional stability may be anxious or depressed.
      • Important to highlight that one needs to differential between terms in clinical sense vs OB.
    • Openness to Experience: Range of interests and enjoyment of new things (creative, artistically sensitive, curious, innovative vs. enjoying routine, conventional).

The Dark Triad

  • Often perceived as negative traits.
    • Machiavellianism: Pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, believes ends justify the means.
      • High Mach individuals are manipulative and strategic.
    • Narcissism: Arrogant, inflated sense of self-importance, seeks admiration, sense of entitlement.
      • Narcissists handle criticism poorly and require excessive admiration.
    • Psychopathy: Lack of concern for others, lack of guilt or remorse when actions cause harm.
      • Psychopathy is distinct from Machiavellianism because it's not necessarily focused on being manipulative, but having a general disregard for the well-being of others.
  • It is essential to remember that these are not clinical definitions.

Other Personality Traits

  • Core Self-Evaluations: People with positive core self-evaluations think highly of themselves and are confident in their success.
    • Positively related to performance and predicts leadership emergence.
  • Self-Monitoring: Ability to adjust behavior to situational factors (related to surface acting).
  • Proactive Personality: Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, and takes action.

Impact on Job Search Behavior

  • Important for job seekers and managers.
  • Conscientiousness: High conscientiousness leads to structured and efficient job search behavior.
  • Extraversion: Greater comfort with outreach and networking.
  • Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy: Confidence in qualifications leads to more proactive job seeking.
  • Managers should consider that conscientious and extroverted individuals with high self-esteem may be most visible, potentially overlooking other qualified candidates with different personality traits.
    • Managers should consider how they list positions and communicate openings such that they do not exclude those who might not be as proficient in personality traits.

Situation Strength Theory

  • Personality translates into behavior based on the strength of the situation.
  • Strength of a situation is how much it controls behavior.
  • Four components:
    • Clarity: How clear are the expectations?
    • Consistency: How often are similar behaviors requested?
    • Constraints: Can you break the rules; what are the rules?
    • Consequences: What happens if you break the rules?
  • Stronger situations = less personality influence.
  • Examples:
    • A warden of a prison requires a strong situation ensure set of guidelines are followed to keep their guards in check
    • Building Codes need to have a strong situation to prevent houses from burning down due to faulty wiring.

Trait Activation Theory

  • Workplace stimuli activate different personality traits.
  • Examples:
    • Sales bonus activates extraversion.
    • Detail orientation activates conscientiousness.
    • Innovation activates openness to experience.
    • Dealing with angry people activates extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability.
    • Time pressures activate conscientiousness and emotional stability.

Values

  • Basic convictions about what's right, wrong, good, or bad.
  • Value systems rank values by importance.
  • Lay the foundation for attitudes and motivation.
  • Two types:
    • Terminal Values: Desired end states (e.g., "I want to be rich").
    • Instrumental Values: How you want to get there (e.g., hard work).

Generational Values

  • Common associations:
    • Baby Boomers (1965-1985): Success, achievement, ambition.
    • Generation Xers (1985-2000): Work-life balance, team-oriented, dislike rules.
    • Millennials (After 2000): Confidence, financial success, self-reliant.
  • These estimations lack research support, be careful not to stereotype without justification.

Person-Job Fit (Holland's Theory)

  • Six personality types:
    • Realistic: Prefers physical activities requiring skill, strength, and coordination.
      • Good work can be mechanic, drill press operator, or assembly line worker.
    • Investigative: Prefers thinking, organizing, and understanding.
      • Good work can be scientist, biologist, historian, or news reporter.
    • Social: Prefers helping, developing, and teaching others.
      • Good work examples are social worker, teacher, or counselor.
    • Conventional: Prefers rule-regulated, orderly, unambiguous activities.
      • Good work examples are accountant or corporate manager.
    • Enterprising: Prefers influencing others and attaining power.
      • Good work examples are lawyers, real estate agent, public relations specialist, or small business manager.
    • Artistic: Prefers ambiguity and unsystematic activities.
      • Good works can be painter, musician, or writer.

Person-Organization Fit

  • Extroversion fits well with aggressive and team-oriented cultures.
  • Agreeableness matches with supportive organizational climates.
  • Openness to experience fits better with organizations emphasizing innovation.
  • Be careful not to exclude people from employment based on personality traits not clearly tied to job needs, as personality can be related to heredity.

Other Types of Fit

  • Person-Group Fit: Important in group settings.
  • Person-Supervisor Fit: Important when interacting with supervisor; poor fit leads to low job satisfaction.

Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture

  • Looks at personality traits and how they differ across the world.
  • Traits: Power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity (dominant vs. cooperative), uncertainty avoidance, long-term vs. short-term orientation.
  • Tool: Culture Compass helps compare countries.

GLOBE Framework

  • Newer, updated tool.
  • Data from 825 organizations in 62 countries.
  • Similar variables to Hofstede's, plus new ones.