Lesson_4_-_Notes
Lesson_4_-_Notes
b. Second, some research in Germany suggests that your personality can change
after unemployment—in a sample of nearly 7,000 unemployed adults who were
tracked over 4 years, significant patterns of change in agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and openness were uncovered.
F. Personality and Situations
a. Increasingly, we are learning that the effect of particular traits on organizational
behavior depends on the situation. Two theoretical frameworks help explain how
this works.
2. Situation Strength Theory
a. Situation strength theory proposes that the way personality translates into
behavior depends on the strength of the situation.
b. By situation strength, we mean the degree to which norms, cues, or standards
dictate appropriate behavior.
c. Research suggests that personality traits better predict behavior in weak situations
than in strong ones.
d. Researchers have analyzed situation strength in organizations in terms of four
elements:
i. Clarity, or the degree to which cues about work duties and responsibilities are
available and clear.
ii. Consistency, or the extent to which cues regarding work duties and
responsibilities are compatible with one another.
iii. Constraints, or the extent to which individuals’ freedom to decide or act is
limited by forces outside their control.
iv. Consequences, or the degree to which decisions or actions have important
implications for the organization or its members, clients, supplies, and so on.
e. Some researchers have speculated that organizations are, by definition, strong
situations because they impose rules, norms, and standards that govern behavior.
These constraints are usually appropriate.
G. Trait Activation Theory
1. Trait activation theory (TAT) predicts that some situations, events, or interventions
“activate” a trait more than others.
a. Exhibit 4-3 shows jobs in which certain Big Five traits are more relevant.
III. Values
A. Introduction
1. Values represent basic convictions.
2. The intensity attribute specifies how important it is. The content attribute says a
mode of conduct or end-state of existence is important.
3. They have both content and intensity attributes.
4. An individual’s set of values ranked in terms of intensity is considered the person’s
value system.
5. Values have the tendency to be stable.
6. Many of our values were established in our early years from parents, teachers,
friends, and others.
B. The Importance and Organization of Values
1. Values lay the foundation for the understanding of attitudes and motivation.
LESSON 4 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
2. We enter an organization with preconceived notions of what “ought” and “ought not”
be.
a. These notions are not value-free; on the contrary, they contain our interpretations
of right and wrong and our preference for certain behaviors or outcomes over
others.
3. Values influence attitudes and behavior.
C. Terminal Versus Instrumental Values
1. How can we organize values?
2. Milton Rokeach separates them into:
a. Terminal Values—refer to desirable end states of existence; the goals that a
person would like to achieve during his/her lifetime.
b. Instrumental Values—refer to preferable modes of behavior; the means of
achieving the terminal values.
D. Generational Values
1. Contemporary work cohorts
i. Exhibit 4-4 segments employees by the era during which they entered the
workforce.
ii. Because most people start work between the ages of 18 and 23, the eras also
correlate closely with employee age.
(a) Boomers (Baby Boomers)—entered the workforce during the 1960s
through the mid-1980s.
(b) Xers—entered the workforce beginning in the mid-1980s.
(c) The most recent entrants to the workforce are the Millennials.
2. Though it is fascinating to think about generational values, remember these
classifications lack solid research support.
3. Generational classifications may help us understand our own and other generations
better, but we must also appreciate their limits.
IV. Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace
A. The Person-Job Fit
1. This concern is best articulated in John Holland’s personality-job fit theory.
2. Holland presents six personality types and proposes that satisfaction and the
propensity to leave a job depends on the degree to which individuals successfully
match their personalities to an occupational environment.
3. The six personality types are: realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising,
and artistic. (Exhibit 4-5)
a. Each one of the six personality types has a congruent occupational environment.
b. Vocational Preference Inventory questionnaire contains 160 occupational titles.
Respondents indicate which of these occupations they like or dislike; their
answers are used to form personality profiles.
c. The theory argues that satisfaction is highest and turnover lowest when
personality and occupation are in agreement.
i. The key point of this model is that people in jobs congruent with their
personality should be more satisfied and less likely to voluntarily resign than
people in incongruent jobs.
B. Person-Organization Fit
LESSON 4 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
1. The person-organization fit essentially argues that people are attracted to and selected
by organizations that match their values, and they leave organizations that are not
compatible with their personalities.
2. Using the Big Five terminology, for instance, we could expect that people high on
extraversion fit well with aggressive and team-oriented cultures, that people high on
agreeableness match up better with a supportive organizational climate than one
focused on aggressiveness, and that people high on openness to experience fit better
in organizations that emphasize innovation rather than standardization.
3. Research on person-organization fit has also looked at whether people’s values match
the organization’s culture.
4. This match predicts job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and low
turnover.
C. Other Dimensions of Fit
1. Although person-job fit and person-organization fit are considered the most salient
dimensions for workplace outcomes, other avenues of fit are worth examining.
2. These include person-group fit and person-supervisor fit.
a. Person-group fit is important in team settings, where the dynamics of team
interactions significantly affect work outcomes.
b. Person-supervisor fit has become an important area of research since poor fit in
this dimension can lead to lower job satisfaction and reduced performance.
V. Cultural Values
A. Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
1. Five value dimensions of national culture:
a. Power distance: the degree to which people in a country accept that power in
institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
b. Individualism versus collectivism: individualism is the degree to which people
in a country prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups;
collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework in which people expect others in
groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.
c. Masculinity versus femininity: masculinity is the degree to which the culture
favors traditional masculine roles such as achievement, power, and control, as
opposed to viewing men and women as equals.
d. Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which people in a country prefer structured
over unstructured situations.
e. Long-term versus short-term orientation: long-term orientations look to the
future and value thrift and persistence. In a short-term orientation, people value
the here and now; they accept change more readily and don’t see commitments as
impediments to change.
2. Hofstede’s research findings. (Exhibit 4-6)
a. Asian countries were more collectivistic than individualistic.
b. United States ranked highest on individualism.
c. Germany and Hong Kong rated high on masculinity.
d. Russia and The Netherlands were low on masculinity.
e. China and Hong Kong had a long-term orientation.
f. France and the United States had short-term orientation.
3. Hofstede’s recent research
LESSON 4 – INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
4. Consider situational factors when evaluating observable personality traits, and lower
the situation strength, to better ascertain personality characteristics.
5. The more you consider people’s different cultures, the better you will be able to
determine their work behavior and create a positive organizational climate that
performs well.