Term paper

Of
Management Practices
&
Organisational Behavior

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Mr. Vikram katyal Pragati verma
RS1002B78
Section: S1002

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 CONTENTS
1. Acknowledgement………………………………………….....3

2. Methodology………………………………………………......3

3. Preface........................................................................................4

4. Objectives...................................................................................5

5. Scope of the study.....................................................................5

6. Need of the study.......................................................................5

7. Importance of the study.............................................................5

8. Introduction……………………………………………….......6-8

9. Early study of individual difference...........................................9-10

10. Moore model of individual differences.....................................11

11. Personality psychology..............................................................12-15

12. Sources of individual difference................................................15-16

13. Literature Review……………………………………….........17-23

14. Analysis.....................................................................................24

15. Recommendations.....................................................................25

16. Conclusion………………………………………………..........26-28

17. References………………………………………………….......29

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Like other creative writings, preparation of term paper has really proved

beneficial for the young brains. No doubt such efforts do widen the horizon

of knowledge particularly and paraphrasing. I feel obliged to my teacher Mr.

Vikram katyal who has been guiding me on the subjects and without whose

help, preparation of term paper would have been impossible.

I have off and on consulted to internet, research papers, and article. I have no

words to thank my subject teacher for his valuable help and support.

METHODOLOGY
The completion of this term paper was not possible without the help of

secondary sources which I have used. I owe my deep sense of ineptness and

thanks to all those sources that played a vital role in completion of my term

paper. In making this term report I collected a lot of data from publications,

internet and books.

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 PREFACE:

This term paper was conducted for the purpose of providing

information to those unaware and unfamiliar with the concepts and

issues surrounding privacy and information online. It should offer

resources for further research and exploration as it pertains to the

readers needs. For those who are already familiar with the topic, this

paper would probably be more like a song (favourite or not) you can

sing the words to.

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OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:
 To study about various determinants of individual differences.

 Understanding the concepts of individual difference and

performance.

 To study about the application of individual difference in

organisation.

 To study about the impact of individual difference on

performance.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

The study covers the concept of individual difference and various factors
behind the individual difference and it also covers the impact of individual
difference on performance. The study is done through secondary data only.

NEED OF THE STUDY:

Individual difference is a complex concept , no two persons behave in same
way and individual difference affect performance and Performance determine
the productivity level and maximum productivity is necessary for profit and
growth of company. The study helps to understand the behaviour of individual
and it tells the relation between individual difference and performance which is
useful for organisation.

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY:

 The study helps to understand the individual behaviour.

 The study gives information about the individual difference and

it’s impact on performance.

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  The study include recommendations which tells how organisation
can improve their performance by understanding individual
differences.

INTRODUCTION:

For years, organizational administrators have been faced with the

different difficulties by which they are supposed to understand the
aspects of individuality of each person that comes in the business as
part of the employee force of their organization. Moreover, the
situation becomes even tougher as human individuals rend to demand on
the fact that they and their needs ought to be satisfied by the
organization.
As for a fact, there are numerous aspects of differences that needs
consideration when this issue of human dimension is being discussed.
Consequently though, each aspect such as gender , demographics , race and
culture are of equal great importance as they should all be well
attended by the management as to how they particularly impact the
performance of the people in the company.
People tend to differ in preferences based on their age. Because of the
gap that exists between the young ones and the aged, employees of this
particular situation may have different demands as to how they ought to
be given attention by the company’s administration.
The young ones in particular, usually do not want to accept too many
criticisms although they do want to learn more to improve their
performance at work. Hence, although criticisms are all right in
management, they should be kept at a minimal application as they do
affect the willingness of the young individuals to perform well.
Older ones on the other hand require recognition of their job.
Experienced workers because of their age would usually want attention
that is far more serious than that of the attention given to the younger
ones. So as to maintain fairness, it is important that the management
sees to it that the need of attention and recognition by both the young
and old employees of the company is strongly provided as needed through
the programs that are established to set equality in the workplace.
Perceptions of work also differ because of age. As for a fact, people
who are younger are known to being more production concerned as they are

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in terms of achievement, on the other hand, older ones prefer to focus
more on the possibilities that they could be able to attain success from
the company through achieving recognitions rather than they are actually
concerned with the production that they are making. Seeing these needs
in an equal perspective, it could be noted that both could work good for
the company. Putting together the perspective of the young and old upon
the intense position that they are putting on their goals of performing
well and achieving high in the organization could be placed together to
make up a more successful set up for the organization's operational
progress .

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES :
DEFINITION:

People differ in physical dimension, strength, interests and skills. They differ in
the rate and pattern of development. They differ in the keenness of the
integration of their intellectual and physical functions. They differ in
proficiency of certain tasks. Their differences may affect their success in their
work or in society. Psychology use measurements to study individual
differences :

 Nominal measurement Numbers are use to identify different

categories;

 Ordinal measurement Numbers designate rank or order among the

things being measured;

 Interval measurement Numbers represent differences in magnitude.

Individual differences is a cornerstone subject area in modern psychology. In

many ways, it is the "classic" psychology that the general public refers to - it
refers the psychology of the person - the psychological differences between
people and their similarities.

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Plato stated more than 2000 years ago:

No two persons are born exactly alike; but each differs from the other in natural
endowments, one being suited for one occupation and the other for another.

In the Western psychology approach to individual differences, it is generally

assumed that:

 People vary on a range of psychological attributes.

 It is possible to measure and study these individual differences.
 Individual differences are useful for explaining and predicting
behaviour and performance.

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EARLY STUDY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES:
We have come a long way since Franz Gall invented phrenology in the early
1800s. Phrenology is the study of an individual's bumps on the skull, which
supposedly reveal character traits and mental abilities.
Phrenology had such vogue that by 1832 there were 29 phrenological
societies in Britain and many journals in both the UK and US devoted to the
study of phrenology. It was seriously proposed to select Members of
Parliament from their "bumps". Some phrenologists even moulded children's
heads to accentuate good qualities and minimise bad ones!
Despite the theory being incorrect one of its assumptions holds true: the idea
that various brain regions have particular functions. Darwin suggested that
nature selects successful traits through the survival of the fittest. His
cousin, Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) concluded that he could apply the
principle scientifically. Why not measure human traits and then selectively
breed superior people? He assumed human traits, everything from height and
beauty to intelligence and ability, to personality traits such as even-
temperedness, were inherited. Modern psychology has formalised the study of
individual differences over the last 100 years. Individual differences
psychology is still a young science and a relatively recent development in
modern psychology. There are still many debates and issues. Current
knowledge will change and evolve. So, have an open-minded, but critical
perspective as we go along!
Since there are multiple and controversial viewpoints, it is necessary to move
beyond reliance on personally preferred viewpoints to also embrace alternative
perspectives, particularly those which are utilized in psychological practice
and which have solid research support.

LAW OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE:

 The fact that people differ in personality, abilities, values, and needs.

 Different people react to different incentives in different ways.

 Managers should be aware of employee needs and fine-tune the

incentives offered to meets their need.

 Money is not the only motivator.

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 The basic determinants of individual difference involve 4 key elements:

 Personality:- embraces the psychological structures and processes

which shape a person’s actions and reactions with the environment
reflects patterns of behaviour and modes of thinking that determine a
person’s adjustment to the environment i.e. behaviour takes place in
many different contexts and is the product of the interaction of the person
and the situation. Personality traits can be identified and classified in
order to assist with selection processes.

 Perception:- the process by which the individual interprets the stimuli

received from the environment. The individual’s senses are continuously
receiving stimuli – these sensations are the inputs into the perception
process which produces outputs of information and meanings –
management must be aware that perceptions of their actions will vary
across different groups and individuals – for example, what a manager
sees as fair treatment may be viewed by the individual as discrimination.
The manager must be aware of this and other perceptual distortions such
as stereotyping.

 Attitudes:- a set of mental views or dispositions based on beliefs and

feelings, which an individual may bring to a situation - attitudes and the
beliefs they are based on do not always lead to an intention to act or
indeed action itself. Hence even if management succeed in changing
attitudes to change this may still not produce the change itself –
individual attitudes and the behaviour they may produce seem to respond
best to small group situations since membership appears to reduce fear of
change. However the clash of new ideas with deep rooted attitudes may
produce cognitive dissonance.

 Learning:- the process by which individuals acquire new knowledge,

skills and attitudes – the learning process can produce permanent changes
in attitudes and behaviour – learning transcends formal education since
individuals are constantly learning from their experiences in organisation
and elsewhere e.g. what is socially and organisationally acceptable and
unacceptable – learning is thought to occur due either to conditioning i.e.
reinforcement of the link between stimulus and response, or through a

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 continuous process of experience, reflection, conceptualisation and
application.

Moore model of individual differences

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Personality psychology addresses the questions of shared human nature,
dimensions of individual differences and unique patterns of individuals.
Research in IDs ranges from analyses of genetic codes to the study of sexual,

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social, ethnic, and cultural differences and includes research on cognitive
abilities, interpersonal styles, and emotional reactivity. Methods range from
laboratory experiments to longitudinal field studies and include data reduction
techniques such as Factor Analysis and Principal Components Analysis, as well
as Structural Modeling and Multi-Level Modeling procedures. Measurement
issues of most importance are those of reliability and stability of Individual
Differences.

Research in Individual Differences addresses three broad questions:

1) developing an adequate descriptive taxonomy of how people differ;

2) applying differences in one situation to predict differences in other situations;

and

3) testing theoretical explanations of the structure and dynamics of individual

differences.

Taxonomies of individual differences:

Taxonomic work has focused on categorizing the infinite ways in which

individuals differ in terms of a limited number of latent or unobservable
constructs. This is a multi-step, cyclical process of intuition, observation,
deduction, induction, and verification that has gradually converged on a
consensual descriptive organization of broad classes of variables as well as on
methods for analyzing them. Most of the measurement and taxonomic
techniques used throughout the field have been developed in response to the
demand for selection for schooling, training, and business applications.

Test Theory

Consider the case of differences in vocabulary in a particular language (e.g.,

English). Although it is logically possible to organize people in terms of the
specific words they know in English, the more than 2^(500,000) possible
response patterns that could be found by quizzing people on each of the more
than 500,000 words in English introduces more complexity rather than less.
Classical Test Theory (CTT) ignores individual response patterns and estimates
an individual's total vocabulary size by measuring performance on small
samples of words. Words are seen as random replicates of each other and thus
individual differences in total vocabulary size are estimated from observed
differences on these smaller samples. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation
Coefficient (r) compares the degree of covariance between these samples with
the variance within samples. As the number of words sampled increases, the

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correlation of the individual differences within each sample and with those in
the total domain increases accordingly.

Estimates of ability based upon Item Response Theory (IRT) take into account
parameters of the words themselves (i.e., the difficulty and discriminability of
each word) and estimate a single ability parameter for each individual.
Although CTT and IRT estimates are highly correlated, CTT statistics are based
on decomposing the sources of variance within and between individuals while
IRT statistics focus on the precision of an individual estimate without requiring
differences between individuals. CTT estimates of reliability of ability
measures are assessed across similar items (internal consistency), across
alternate forms, and across different forms of assessment as well as over time
(stability). Tests are reliable to the extent that differences within individuals are
small compared to those between individuals when generalizing across items,
forms, or occasions. CTT reliability thus requires between subject variability.
IRT estimates, on the other hand, are concerned with the precision of
measurement for a particular person in terms of a metric defined by item
difficulty.

The test theory developed to account for sampling differences within domains
can be generalized to account for differences between domains. Just as different
samples of words will yield somewhat different estimates of vocabulary,
different cognitive tasks (e.g., vocabulary and arithmetic performance) will
yield different estimates of performance. Using multivariate procedures such as
Principal Components Analysis or Factor Analysis, it is possible to decompose
the total variation into between domain covariance, within domain covariance,
and within domain variance. One of the most replicable observations in the
study of individual differences is that almost all tests thought to assess cognitive
ability have a general factor (g) that is shared with other tests of ability. That is,
although each test has specific variance associated with content (e.g., linguistic,
spatial), form of administration (e.g., auditory, visual), or operations involved
(e.g., perceptual speed, memory storage, memory retrieval, abstract reasoning),
there is general variance that is common to all tests of cognitive ability.

Personality and Ability

Although to some the term personality refers to all aspects of a person's

individuality, typical usage divides the field into studies of ability and
personality. Tests of ability are viewed as maximal performance measures.
Ability is construed as the best one can do on a particular measure in a limited
time (speed test) or with unlimited time (power test). Personality measures are
estimates of average performance and typically include reports of preferences

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and estimates of what one normally does and how one perceives oneself and is
perceived by others.

The same procedures used to clarify the structure of cognitive abilities have
been applied to the question of identifying the domains of personality. Many of
the early and current personality inventories use self-descriptive questions (e.g.,
do you like to go to lively parties; are you sometimes nervous) that are
rationally or theoretically relevant to some domain of interest for a particular
investigator. Although there is substantial consistency across inventories
developed this way, some of this agreement could be due to conceptually
overlapping item pools. Other researchers have advocated a lexical approach to
the taxonomic problem, following the basic assumption that words in the
natural language describe all important individual differences. This shifts the
taxonomic question from how are individuals similar and different from each
other to how are the words used to describe individuals (e.g., lively, talkative,
nervous, anxious) similar and different from each other.

Dimensional analyses of tests developed based on lexical, rational, or

theoretical bases suggest that a limited number (between three and seven) of
higher order trait domains adequately organize the thousands of words that
describe individual differences and the logically infinite way that these words
can be combined into self or peer report items. The broadest domains are those
of introversion-extraversion and emotional stability-neuroticism, with the
domains of agreeableness, conscientiousness and intellectual openness or
culture close behind. These domains can be seen as asking the questions that
one wants to know about a stranger or a potential mate: are they energetic and
dominant (extraverted), emotionally stable (low neurotic), trustworthy
(conscientious), loveable (agreeable), and interesting (intelligent and open).

Measures of ability and personality reflect observations aggregated across time

and occasion and require inferences about stable latent traits thought to account
for the variety of observed behaviors. However there are other individual
differences that are readily apparent to outside observers and require little or no
inference about latent traits. The most obvious of such variables include sex,
age, height, and weight. Differences that require some knowledge and inference
are differences in ethnicity and social economic status. These obvious group
differences are sometimes analyzed in terms of the more subtle measures of
personality and ability or of real life outcomes (e.g, sex differences in
neuroticism, mathematics ability, or income).

Predictive Validity

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Individual differences are important only to the extent that they make a
difference. Does knowing that people differ on a trait X help in predicting the
likelihood of their doing behavior Y? For many important outcome variables
the answer is a resounding yes. In their review of 85 years of selection in
personnel psychology, Frank Schmidt and John Hunter (Psychological Bulletin,
1998, 124, 262-274) show how differences in cognitive ability predict
differences in job performance with correlations averaging about .50 for mid
complexity jobs. These correlations are moderated by job complexity and are
much higher for professional-managerial positions than they are for completely
unskilled jobs. In terms of applications to personnel psychology, a superior
manager (one standard deviation above the mean ability for managers) produces
almost 50% more than an average manager. These relationships diminish as a
function of years of experience and degree of training. General mental ability
(g) also has substantial predictive powers in predicting non-job related
outcomes, such as likelihood of completing college, risk for divorce and even
risk for criminality.

The non-cognitive measures of individual differences also predict important

real life criteria. Extraversion is highly correlated with total sales in dollars
among salespeople. Similarly, impulsivity can be used to predict traffic
violations. Conscientiousness, when added to g substantially increases the
predictability of job performance. Although the size of the correlation is much
lower, conscientiousness measured in adolescence predicts premature mortality
over the next fifty years.

Sources of individual differences

The taxonomic and predictive studies of individual differences are descriptive

organizations of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that go together and how they
relate to other outcomes. But this categorization is descriptive rather than causal
and is analogous to grouping rocks in terms of density and hardness rather than
atomic or molecular structure. Causal theories of individual differences are
being developed but are in a much earlier stage than are the descriptive
taxonomies.

Descriptive taxonomies are used to organize the results of studies that examine
genetic bases of individual differences. By applying structural modeling
techniques to the variances and covariances associated with various family
constellations it is possible to decompose phenotypic trait variance into separate
sources of genetic and environmental variance. The most common family
configurations that are used are comparisons of identical (monozygotic) with
fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Additional designs include twins reared together or
apart, and biological versus adoptive parents, children and siblings. Conclusions

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from behavioral genetics for most personality traits tend to be similar: Across
different designs, with different samples from different countries, roughly 40-
60% of the phenotypic variance seems to be under genetic control with only a
very small part of the remaining environmental variance associated with shared
family environmental effects.

Additional results suggest that genetic sources of individual differences remain

important across the lifespan. However, this should not be taken to mean that
people do not change as they mature but rather that the paths one takes through
life are similar to those taken by genetically similar individuals.

Genes do not code for thoughts, feelings or behavior but rather code for
proteins that regulate and modulate biological systems. Although promising
work has been done searching for the biological bases of individual differences
it is possible to sketch out these bases only in the broadest of terms. Specific
neurotransmitters and brain structures can be associated with a broad class of
approach behaviors and positive affects while other neurotransmitters and
structures can be associated with a similarly broad class of avoidance behaviors
and negative affects. Reports relating specific alleles to specific personality
traits emphasize that the broad personality traits are most likely under polygenic
influence and are moderated by environmental experience.

Subtle differences in neurotransmitter availability and re-uptake vary the

sensitivity of individuals to cues about their environment that predict future
resource availability and external rewards and punishments. It is the way these
cues are detected, atttended to, stored, and integrated with previous experiences
that makes each individual unique. Current work on the bases of individual
differences is concerned with understanding this delicate interplay of biological
propensities with environmental opportunities and constraints as they are
ultimately represented in an individual's information processing system. With
time we can expect to increase our taxonomic and predictive power by using
these causal bio-social theories of individual differences.

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LITERATURE REVIEW:
ARTICLE1:

Stereotypes and Individual Differences

Posted: Jul 19, 2010

Stereotypes are types of generalization that are useful in organizing the massive
amounts of information to which people are exposed. As with any
generalization, the formation of stereotypes downplays the behavior of specific
individuals and stresses trends across large numbers of people. After many
observations of different individuals, people from all over the world are likely
to see more aggressive behavior in men, more nurturing behavior in women,
more assertion of leadership among men, and more passivity among women in
mixed-gender groups. These observations become part of the universal
stereotypes of men and women. When drawing their conclusions about men and
women, observers do not focus on individual differences. They do not focus
their attention on the individual aggressive woman or the passive man.
Reference: www.articlealley.com/article_1673802_15.html -

ARTICLE2:

Individual Differences - How they Affect

Organizational Behavior
Latanya Whitehead, posted Feb 16, 2010

If you go into any job no matter where you are in the world you will come
across a multitude of different personalities and behaviors. An individual's
personality doesn't just affect the individual, but everyone around them.
Managers are responsible for recognizing and treating employees as individuals
and not as groups. There is no way an individual can be treated the same way as
the next person because everyone is different. We observe one another's actions
and try to understand what we see, this is known as "reading a person" which
may or may not be accurate (Robbins, & Judge, 2010). Individual behavior is
determined by many factors such as environment, culture, beliefs and the
quality of life. Attitude is expressed in either satisfaction or dissatisfaction and

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the interaction between them. If a person has a feeling of unhappiness on the
job, it can have an affect in other areas as well such as personal life. An
individual may have discontent on the job due to stress, frustration or feeling
alienated.

There are many different types of personalities. Personality is the sum total of
ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others (2010).
Managers need to be able to measure personalities in order to make useful
hiring decisions and they can do this by giving personality test and evaluating
the results. Some strategies that mangers use to measure an individual's
personality is allowing them to rate themselves in a survey. The weakness in
using this method to measure individual personality is that a person may lie on
the survey. Another type of method used is an observer rating survey. This
method is more accurate than the self report survey because another person will
observe and rate an individual's personality.

Reference:
www.associatedcontent.com/article/.../individual_differences_how_they_affect.html -

ARTICLE3:

A Theory of Individual Differences in Task and Contextual

Performance
Authors: Stephan J. Motowildo; Walter C. Borman; Mark J. Schmit

This article describes a theory of job performance that assumes that job
performance is behavioral, episodic, evaluative, and multidimensional. It
defines job performance as the aggregated value to the organization of the
discrete behavioral episodes that an individual performs over a standard
interval of time. It uses the distinction between task and contextual
performance to begin to identify and define underlying dimen- sions of
the behavioral episodes that make up the performance domain. The
theory predicts that individual differences in personality and cognitive
ability variables, in combination with learning experiences, lead to
variability in knowledge, skills, and work habits that mediate effects of
personality and cognitive ability on job perform- ance. An especially
important aspect of this theory is that it predicts that the kinds of
knowledge, skills, work habits, and traits that are associated with task
performance are different from the kinds that are associated with
contextual performance.

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 References:
www.informaworld.com/.../content~content=a784771086~db=all~order=page

ARTICLE4:

Individual differences and goal:

The purpose of this study is to clarify the roles played by individual
differences and goal origin in the goal setting process. In order to
accomplish this objective this study
(a) Briefly reviews the existing empirical evidence on individual
differences in the goal setting literature,
(b) Develops a model of the goal-setting process that specifies different
roles for individual differences depending upon goal origin, and
(c) Tests hypotheses generated by this model in a laboratory setting.

The results indicate that under self-set conditions variables associated

with self-perceptions of task-specific ability, but not generalized self-
esteem, are related to the difficulty of the goals selected, with more
difficult goals being set by individuals high in task-specific ability
perceptions. Furthermore, when goals are self-set, regardless of
individual differences, the expectancy and valence of goal attainment
tends to be high and invariant relative to assigned conditions (i.e., the
motivation to pursue the goal is high), and a strong goal difficulty-
performance relationship is in evidence for all subjects. Under assigned
goal conditions, individual differences determine the reaction to the
assigned goal. Individuals high in task-specific self-esteem have stronger
expectancies for attaining the goal relative to those low in this trait; and,
individuals high in generalized self-esteem exhibit higher valence for
goal attainment than those low in generalized self-esteem. In assigned
conditions, there was a positive goal difficulty-performance relationship
only for individuals high in generalized self-esteem. Some evidence
actually suggested that for subjects low in generalized self-esteem, it is
better to assign low goals. Low goals seem to increase the self-perceived
task-specific ability of these subjects which relates positively with
performance.
References: tec.sagepub.com/content/1/4/71.refs?cited-by=yes&legid=sptec;1/4/...

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ARTICLE 5:

Top 10 Key Differences Between A Team Of Individuals And

A Group Of Individuals
Posted: Jan 28, 2009

The purpose of assembling a team is to accomplish bigger goals than any that
would be possible for the individual working alone. The aim and purpose of a
team is to perform, get results and achieve victory in the workplace and
marketplace.

The very best managers are those who can gather together a group of
individuals and mold them into a team. Here are ten key differentials to help
you mold your people into a pro-active and productive team.

 Understandings

 Ownership

 Trust

 Common Understanding

 Personal Development

 Conflict Resolution

 Participative Decision Making

 Clear Leadership

 Commitment

References: http://www.articlesbase.com/team-building-articles/top-10-key-differences-between-a-

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team-of-individuals-and-a-group-of-individuals-744771.html

ARTICLE6:

Valuing Individual Differences - Key to Team Success

Posted: Aug 28, 2008:

Seeing things in a different way can be the road to success. Leaders place a high
value on being able to see things through different lenses. Successful problem
solving teams and project teams value individual differences as the means of
arriving at innovative ways to meeting their goals. Most of us - based on our
personal set of values, experiences, and a wide variety of other factors, develop
a unique view of whatever we come in contact with. We each see things a little
differently. In those differences lies tremendous value to ourselves and to
others. It can be our greatest strength. The keys in valuing differences as key to
team success involve two dimensions. The first is the external dimension - the
overall team dimension. It's the team's ability to encourage, listen to and use the
differences of team members to arrive at solutions and processes that far exceed
in value and impact what any one member could provide. It can get messy.
There is no learning without conflict. The ability to focus that conflict
constructively is the highest order of skill in a team.

References:http://ezinearticles.com/?Valuing-Individual-Differences---Key-to-Team-
Success&id=1448371

ARTICLE7:

Individualism, Self-sufficiency, Control, the Pursuit of

Individual Goals
Posted: Oct 27, 2006

Traditionally conceptualized as a continuum, individualism collectivism

approach in the management of remuneration has received considerable
attention from sociologists and social psychologists [Hofstede 1983; Hui and
Triandis 1986; Wagner and Moch 1986]. Due to the recent shift from
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"collectivism" to "individualism" approach in remuneration the philosophy of
reward system in UK has changed. In order to analyze those changes which
took place let's compare "individualism" and "collectivism" approaches in
management.
Individualism refers to a self-orientation, an emphasis on self-sufficiency and
control, the pursuit of individual goals that may or may not be consistent with
in-group goals, a willingness to confront members of the in-group to which a
person belongs, and a culture where people derive pride from their own
accomplishments. In an individualistic environment, people are motivated by
self-interest and achievement of personal goals. They are hesitant to contribute
to collective action unless their own efforts are recognized, preferring instead to
benefit from the efforts of others.
Collectivism involves the subordination of personal interests to the goals of the
larger work group, an emphasis on sharing, cooperation, and group harmony, a
concern with group welfare, and hostility toward out-group members.
Collectivists believe that they are an indispensable part of the group, and will
readily contribute without concern for advantage being taken of them or for
whether others are doing their part. They feel personally responsible for the
group product and are oriented towards sharing group rewards.

Reference: www.articlesbase.com/...articles/individualism-selfsufficiency-control-the-
pursuit-of-individual-goals-67611.htm...

ARTICLE8:

Individual Difference Theory and Research: Application to

Multinational:
Megan M. Thompson
Defence Research and Development Canada

A guiding principle of the work of this panel on multinational coalitions is an

acknowledgement of the multitude of factors that can affect teamwork under
such challenging conditions. Individual differences in cognitive processing is
one such factor that the panel has cited as relevant to effective operations of
teams in general, and multinational teams, more specifically. The current talk
will provide an overview of individual difference factors that could be
investigated to facilitate adaptability in teamwork within multinational
coalitions. I begin by briefly discussing individual differences in general and
then specify several constructs that may play a role in teamwork. The talk will
also review the extant experimental literature. The talk will conclude with my

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suggestions for future research concerning individual differences that might be
relevant to adaptability in coalition teamwork.

References: oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html

Journals:
Individual Performance
The Impact of Unconscious Communication

How our unconscious gestures and expressions -- our honest signals -- affect
business interactions
September 03, 2009

Our unconscious gestures and expressions affect business, says MIT Professor
Alex Pentland. In this interview, he describes what "honest signals" are, how
they work, why they can't be controlled, and how these involuntary signals
change our perceptions of risk, reward, and trust.

The Value of Personal Branding

Self-branded people are of tremendous value to all kinds of organizations,
according to a marketing expert. Indeed, he argues that constructing your
personal brand may be the best thing you can do for your workplace and for
yourself -- especially now.

It’s Time to Brand Yourself

Now is as good a time as any to be thinking about your personal brand identity.
With so many people worrying about their real market value and millions
looking for work, having a strong personal brand has become an urgent priority.

The Strengths to Confront Tough Times

Almost daily, companies are cutting workers, and morale and productivity are
suffering as a result. In this environment, a strengths-based approach is vital
because it creates hope, opens the doors to untapped potential, and brings out
the best in people and in companies.

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Reference: http://gmj.gallup.com/tag/individual+performance.aspx

ANALYSIS:

ON THE BASIS OF ARTICLES , JOURNALS AND NEWSPAPER

ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND PERFORMANCE
FOLLOWING ANALYSIS ARE GIVEN BELOW:

 Individual differences is the road to success. Successful problem solving

teams and project teams value individual differences as the means of
arriving at innovative ways to meeting their goals.

 Stereotypes helps in formation of conclusion about specific object. the

formation of stereotypes downplays the behavior of specific individuals
and stresses trends across large numbers of people.

 The theory predicts that individual differences in personality and

cognitive ability variables, in combination with learning experiences, lead
to variability in knowledge, skills, and work habits that mediate effects of
personality and cognitive ability on job performance.

 Individuals high in task-specific self-esteem have stronger expectancies

for attaining the goal relative to those low in this trait; and, individuals
high in generalized self-esteem exhibit higher valence for goal attainment
than those low in generalized self-esteem

 Individual difference is major factor which affect the performance of

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 individuals and it also affect the performance of organisation.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
ORGANISATION SHOULD FOCUS ON THE FACTORS WHICH
AFFECT THE INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR AND INDIVIDUAL
PERFORMANCE.

 Proper managing of individual differences avoid all sort of bad things

happen including conflict, social loafing and deviant behaviour and this
lead effectiveness in individual performance and organisational
performance.

 Individuals contribute their skills and the organisation benefits from

accumulated work experience.

 Individuals contribute co-operation and willingness to work with others

to achieve goals, and this is the foundation stone of successful
organization.

 Individuals contribute ideas and suggestions that help the organization to

improve products and services. This provides the innovative edge
required in the marketplace.

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 CONCLUSION:
That people differ from each other is obvious. How and why they differ is less
clear and is the subject of the study of Individual differences (IDs). Although to
study individual differences seems to be to study variance, how are people
different, it is also to study central tendency, how well can a person be
described in terms of an overall within-person average. Indeed, perhaps the
most important question of individual differences is whether people are more
similar to themselves over time and across situations than they are to others,
and whether the variation within a single person across time and situation is less
than the variation between people. A related question is that of similarity, for
people differ in their similarities to each other. Questions of whether particular
groups (e.g., groupings by sex, culture, age, or ethnicity) are more similar
within than between groups are also questions of individual differences

The individual’s contribution to the organisation includes:

 Effort – managers expect employees to work and fulfill agreed objectives.

 Time – individuals contribute their time and this may include unsocial
hours.
 Obedience – to company rules and policies.
 Flexibility – organisations need to respond to changing situations and
varying demands in effective and customer focused ways.
 Adaptability – individuals are most effective where they adapt to change.
 Skills – individuals bring a variety of skills that are essential to the
effective performance of the organisation. These will include technical,
conceptual and interpersonal skills.
 Loyalty and commitment – to the organisation’s goals and their effective
fulfillment.

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  Personality – this is important to internal relationships and group
effectiveness. Any organisation is more than the sum of its individual
parts.
 Creativity – the individual may contribute new ideas and the
development of better methods and processes.
 Individuality – this may be very important to the on-going health and
effectiveness of the organisation, i.e. challenge to conventional wisdom
and norms.
The main factors that affect the behaviour of an individual within an
organization
1) Recognition of individual performance: this is an essential part of
management and the motivation process.

 This is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with esteem needs being

higher order needs.
 The culture of the organisation needs to place a value on individual
performance and creativity.
 This may be formalised through performance appraisal.

2) Job design:this affects the nature of an individual’s work and therefore

their perceptions and satisfactions. Job enrichment or even job
rotation/enlargement may produce positive behaviours due to the variety
and control conferred on the individual.

3) Leadership style: will have an important impact on behaviour.

Authoritative style may produce negative behaviour as in theory X unless
applied in appropriate contingency. Democratic style will tend to
encourage participation and contribution. Empowerment will require
positive behaviour and personal growth of the individual.

4) Group relationships: will be an important factor since most individuals

work in team situations.

 Groups tend to develop norms and rules governing behaviour.

 Groups provide a barrier between the individual and the organization
which may improve individual commitment and security.

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  Supportive behaviour will be encouraged which will benefit the overall
Organisation.

Role Incompatibility – I can’t please two people/things at the same time.

This is a condition where an individual faces different and often

contradictory role expectations. The person finds it impossible to meet
both sets of expectations. A frequently found example of role
incompatibility is the supervisor or section head who has one sort of role
expectations from management and a quite different set of expectations
from employees or clerical staff: in pleasing one set of requirements, he
may offend the other set of expectations. Similarly, role incompatibility
may arise when one level of managers has a different style from other
levels in the same organisation.

Role ambiguity – I don’t know what to do

This refers to the situation when an individual is not clear or does not
fully understand just what are the requirements of a given role, so that he
does not know how to perform the role. Another source of ambiguity is
when organisational expectations are at variance with self expectations.
Examples of ambiguity arise when communication are not effective,
which is often the case of rapid change.

Role incongruence

When a person is perceived as of high responsibility in some aspects of

work but of lower authority in other parts of the job, he suffers role
incongruence. Examples may arise when a line manager with high
authority over production has to accept the decision of a more junior staff
manager, E.g. marketing or sales decisions.

Role overload

This condition arises when an individual is called to perform too many

roles and meet too many expectations.

Role Underload

This refers to situations where the role expectations of the organisation

fall short of the individual. E.g. an individual may see his role as being
more important than the organisation’s view of the role.

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 References:
• Brody, N. and Ehrlichman, H. (1997) Personality Psychology : Science
of Individuality. Prentice Hall Press; A thoughtful introduction to the
broad field of personality. Cooper, C. (1997) Individual Differences:
London: Arnold A broad overview of the field that includes a review of
measurement methodologies.
• Eysenck, H.J. (1994) Personality: Biological foundations. In P.A. Vernon
(Ed.) The neuropsychology of individual differences. London: Academic
Press.
• Eysenck, H.J. and Eysenck, M.W (1985) Personality and individual
differences: a natural science approach. Plenum: New York. Although
dated, perhaps the best treatment of the scientific method as applied to
the study of personality and individual differences.
• Hogan, R., Johnson, J. & Briggs, S. (Eds) (1997) Handbook of
Personality Psychology. San Diego: Academic Press. The definitive
handbook of the field includes chapters on evolutionary, biological, and
social bases of individual differences.
• Jensen, A.R. (1998) The G Factor : The science of mental ability.
Westport, Conn. Praeger Review of the importance of general
intelligence for performance on tasks.
• Loehlin, J.C. (1992) Genes and environment in personality development.
Newbury Park, Ca. Sage. A concise tutorial on genetic modeling and
personality taxonomies.

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