Organizational Behavior: Individual Differences, Personality, Attitudes, and Emotions

Fundamentals of Individual Differences and Organizational Behavior

Every individual is unique as a result of their distinct background, personal characteristics, specific needs, and individual perceptions of the world and others.
Perceptual differences lead directly to variations in behavior; individuals with different personalities interact uniquely with supervisors, team members, coworkers, subordinates, and customers.
Individual differences clarify fundamental workplace dynamics, explaining why:
- Certain employees embrace organizational change while others fear it.
- Some workers achieve productivity only under close supervision, whereas others are productive only when granted full autonomy.
- Some employees acquire new job skills far more effectively than others.
Individual differences affect virtually every domain of organizational activity, shaping overall organizational behavior as well as individual and organizational success.
Essential Managerial Responsibilities:
- Observe and recognize individual differences among employees.
- Study relationships among variables that influence individual work behavior.
- Evaluate employee attitudes, perceptions, and abilities to understand variable linkages and make optimal management decisions.
Work Behavior Definition & Examples:
- Work behavior encompasses anything an individual does within the work environment.
- Productive Work Behaviors: Talking to a manager, listening to a coworker, developing a new method for sales follow-up, learning new software, typing an email, conducting internet research, placing completed units into inventory, and mastering an accounting system.
- Nonproductive Work Behaviors: Daydreaming about the beach or socializing on Facebook during work hours.
Classification of Individual Variables Influencing Behavior:
- Diversity
- Abilities and Skills
- Attitudes
- Personality
- Emotions
- Perceptions

Workplace Diversity and Demographic Projections

Diversity Definition: Attributes that render individuals distinct from one another.
Dimensions of Diversity:
- Primary and Stable Dimensions (lifelong impact on behavior and attitudes): Age, ethnicity, gender, physical attributes, race, and sexual/affectional orientation.
- Secondary and Changeable Dimensions: Educational background, marital status, religious beliefs, health, and work experience.
U.S. Census Bureau Demographic Projections:
- The U.S. population will grow increasingly older and more diverse over the next $50$ years.
- Minority populations (currently comprising over $1/3$ of the U.S. population) will become the majority well before the year $2060$
- The total minority population (all groups except non-Hispanic whites) is projected to exceed $50\%$ of the population.
- The non-Hispanic white population is projected to decline from $199,000,000$ in $2020$ to $179,000,000$ in $2060$ , even as the overall population expands.
- The Hispanic or Latino population is projected to grow rapidly from $17\%$ to nearly $28\%$ of the U.S. population by $2060$
- The African American population is projected to grow modestly from $13\%$ in $2016$ to $15\%$ by $2060$
- The Asian American population is projected to increase from $5.7\%$ to $9.1\%$ by $2060$
- The population aged $65$ and older will nearly double from $49,000,000$ in $2016$ to $95,000,000$ by $2060$ (representing close to $1$ in $4$ Americans by mid-century).
Conceptual Distinctions:
- Diversity is distinct from Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action.
- Diversity refers to the vast spectrum of physical and cultural human differences.
Organizational Benefits of Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity:
- Enhanced Decision Quality:
  - Diverse boards, executives, managers, and employees bring varied experiences, frames of reference, perspectives, contacts, and networks to complex problem-solving.
  - Corporate Board Data: In $2020$ , only $12.5\%$ of board directors across the $3,000$ largest publicly traded companies were Hispanic, Black, Asian American, or Native American.
  - Gender Projections: Women are projected to comprise half of company board members among Russell $3,000$ companies by $2034$
  - S&P Leadership: Currently, only $2$ female CEOs in the S&P serve on boards with a majority of women directors: Mary Barra at GM and Corey Barry at Best Buy.
- Better Connection with Customers:
  - By $2023$ , the combined buying power of Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American consumers in the U.S. is projected to exceed $5,000,000,000,000$
  - DuPont Merck Case Study: Sales of an anticoagulant drug to the Hispanic market increased substantially after a Hispanic employee recommended adding Spanish labeling alongside English.
- More Creative Innovation:
  - Taps creative, cultural, and communicative capabilities to improve organizational policies, products, and customer experiences.
  - Walmart COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Launched virtual summer camps on its mobile app featuring celebrity counselors LeBron James and Drew Barrymore; expanded grocery pickup and delivery to over $3,000$ locations with $50,000$ personal shoppers; paid out nearly $3,000,000,000$ in quarterly and special cash bonuses in $2020$ to recognize worker contributions.
- Higher Financial Performance:
  - Top $50$ companies strongly committed to diversity outperform non-listed peer companies on average financial measures.
  - Strategies for Linking Diversity to Strategy: Establish line-manager ownership of diversity strategies, set clear targets and action plans, treat human capital as a competitive advantage, recruit proactively, cultivate diverse suppliers, and ensure program fairness to mitigate negative reactions from majority groups.
- Interpersonal Impact: Managerial assumptions (e.g., assuming a female employee is less committed due to family responsibilities) alter manager behavior, which recursively alters employee behavior.

Abilities, Skills, and Tacit Knowledge

Core Definitions:
- Ability: A person's natural talent to perform a mental or physical task; generally stable over time.
- Skill: A learned talent acquired through training or experience to perform a task; changes as training and experience occur.
Matching Process:
- Managers must align individual abilities and skills with job requirements.
- No level of leadership, motivation, or organizational resources can compensate for fundamental deficiencies in abilities or skills.
Mental Ability and Cognitive Testing:
- Mental ability (intelligence) subcategories: Verbal fluency and comprehension, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, associative memory, and spatial orientation.
- Wonderlic Personnel Test: A $12$ -minute, $50$ -question cognitive ability assessment used by organizations including the National Football League (NFL) and American Residential Services.
- American Residential Services Strategy: Candidates scoring in the lowest $10\%$ to $15\%$ are rejected, which the company attributes to higher employee quality, improved customer service, and reduced turnover.
Tacit Knowledge (Practical Intelligence):
- Definition: Work-related practical know-how acquired through direct experience and observation rather than manuals or formal training.
- Characteristics of Practical Intelligence:
  - Capitalizing on personal strengths and overcoming weaknesses.
  - Recognizing personal limitations (realizing one is not good at everything).
  - Overcoming negative expectations set by others.
  - Learning effectively from both positive and negative experiences.
  - Maintaining a "can-do" attitude.
- Cable Television Customer Service Example: A representative learned through experience not to interrupt irate customers while venting. Displaying concern and active listening de-escalated conflict and retained business.
- Military Leadership Study: Research involving $562$ military leaders demonstrated that individuals with higher tacit knowledge were evaluated as significantly more effective leaders than those with lower practical experience-based knowledge.
Job Analysis:
- A technique defining and studying a job in terms of tasks and behaviors, specifying required responsibilities, education, and training for successful execution.

Structure of Attitudes and Cognitive Dissonance

Attitude Definition: A learned, organized mental state of readiness through experience that exerts a specific influence on an individual's response to people, objects, and situations.
Four Managerial Implications of Attitudes:
1. Attitudes are learned over time.
2. Attitudes define predispositions toward aspects of the world.
3. Attitudes provide the emotional basis for interpersonal relations and identification with others.
4. Attitudes are organized and situated close to the core of personality.
Three Components of Attitudes:
- Cognitive Component: Perceptions, opinions, beliefs, thought processes, rationality, logic, and evaluative beliefs (favorable or unfavorable impressions).
- Affective Component: The emotional component of feelings toward a person, group, or situation (learned from parents, teachers, and peers).
- Behavioral Component: The tendency of a person to act toward someone or something in a specific manner (e.g., warm, friendly, aggressive, hostile, teasing, or apathetic).
- Deterministic Relationship: Cognition, affect, and behavior determine attitudes; reciprocally, attitudes determine cognition, affect, and behavior.
Cognitive Dissonance:
- Definition: Discomfort caused by an inconsistency or discrepancy between a person's attitudes/beliefs and their behaviors.
- Smoker Example: An individual who believes smoking is harmful to health but continues to smoke experiences cognitive dissonance.
- Methods to Reduce Dissonance:
  - Modifying beliefs (e.g., rationalizing "I am in good health" or "Smoking isn't as bad as claimed").
  - Modifying behavior (e.g., quitting, cutting back, or switching to e-cigarettes).
Managerial Role: Demonstration that positive aspects of organizational contributions outweigh negative aspects to foster favorable employee attitudes.

Job Satisfaction and Performance Dynamics

Job Satisfaction Definition: An attitude representing an employee's perception of their job and the degree of fit between themselves and the organization.
Key Determinants of Job Satisfaction:
- Pay: Amount of compensation received and perceived fairness/equity of that pay.
- Work Itself: Extent to which tasks are interesting and offer learning/responsibility.
- Promotion Opportunities: Availability of advancement within the firm.
- Supervision: Technical competence and interpersonal skills of the immediate manager.
- Coworkers: Extent to which peers are friendly, competent, and supportive.
- Working Conditions: Comfort and productivity support of the physical environment.
- Job Security: Confidence in position stability and continued employment.
Corporate Case Study - Hilton:
- Ranked # $1$ on Fortune's $100$ Best Companies to Work For in $2020$ for the second consecutive year under CEO Chris Niseta (the only non-tech firm to lead the list two years running).
- $96\%$ of Hilton employees rate it a great place to work, compared to $59\%$ at a typical U