Organizational Behaviour:

BUS 311

PERCEPTION, LEARNING AND PERSONALITY

19/09/2017
 PERCEPTION
• Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in
order to give meaning to their environment.

• However, what we perceive can be substantially be different from objective reality.

• For example, all employees in a firm may view it as a great place to work—favorable working
conditions, interesting job assignments, good pay, excellent benefits, understanding and
responsible management—but, as most of us know, it’s very unusual to find such agreement.
Why is perception important in the study of OB?

• Simply because people’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is,
not on reality itself.

• The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviorally important.

• it is importat because we actbased onour interpretations of events.
• it plays a major role in problem solving and decision making.
Factors That Influence Perception

• A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception.

These factors can reside
• in the perceiver;
• in the object, or target, being perceived;
• or in the context of the situation in which the perception is made.
 Person Perception: Making Judgements About
Others
• Non living objects such as desks, machines, and buildings are subject to the laws of nature, but they
have no beliefs, motives, or intentions. People do.

• Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958)

• tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we
attribute to a given behavior.
• It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was
internally or externally caused.
 Internally And Externally Caused Behaviours
• Internally caused behaviors are those we believe to be under the personal control of the individual.

• Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do.

• If one of your employees is late for work, you might attribute that to his partying into the wee hours and
then oversleeping. This is an internal attribution.
• But if you attribute lateness to an automobile accident that tied up traffic, you are making an external
attribution.
 The Three Determinants Of Attribution
• This depends largely on three factors:
• (1)Distinctiveness
• Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations. Is the
employee who arrives late today, also one who regularly “blows off” commitments?
• 2) Consensus
• If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behavior shows consensus.
The behavior of our tardy employee meets this criterion if all employees who took the same route were also late.
• 3) Consistency
• Finally, an observer looks for consistency in a person’s actions.
 Common Shortcuts in Judging Others
• The shortcuts we use in judging others are frequently valuable: they allow us to make accurate perceptions
rapidly and provide valid data for making predictions.

• However, they are not foolproof.

1. Selective Perception
• Any characteristic that makes a person, an object, or an event stand out will increase the probability we will
perceive it. Why?
• Because it is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see; we can take in only certain stimuli. This
explains why you’re more likely to notice cars like your own, or why a boss may reprimand some people and
not others doing the same thing.
• Because we can’t observe everything going on about us, we engage in selective perception.
2. Halo Effect

When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as
intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating.

3. Contrast Effect

Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently
encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.

We don’t evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction is influenced by other persons we have recently
encountered.

For example: A candidate is likely to receive a more favorable evaluation if preceded by mediocre
applicants and a less favorable evaluation if preceded by strong applicants.
 4. Stereotyping
• When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs,
we are using the shortcut called stereotyping.
 Summary And Implications For Managers
• Individuals base their behavior not on the way their external environment actually is but rather on what they see
or believe it to be.

• ●  Whether a manager successfully plans and organizes the work of employees and actually helps them to
structure their work more efficiently and effectively is far less important than how employees perceive the
manager’s efforts.

• ●  Employees judge issues such as fair pay, performance appraisals, and working conditions in very individual
ways. To influence productivity, we need to assess how workers perceive their jobs.
 Organisational Learning
• Organisational Learning
• The way firms build,supplement, and organize knowledge and routines around their and within their
cultures and adapt and develop organizational efficiency by improving the use of the broad skills of
their workforces. (Dodgson, 1993).

• The process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding (Fyol & Lyles, 1985).
 Levels of Learning
• Individual Learning: Since the individuals form the bulk of the organization, they must establish the
necessary forms and processes to enable organizational learning in order to facilitate change.

Organisational Learning: is more than the sum of the parts of individual learning. An organization
does not lose out on its learning abilities when members leave the organization.

Organizational learning contributes to organizational memory.

it is important to note that, the creation of an unlearning organization means that the organization must
forget some of its past.
 Types of Organisational Learning

• There are 3 types of organisational Learning;

• 1. Single-loop Learning: This is the “Lower-level Learning”, “Not-Strategic Learning”. This occurs when
errors are detected and corrected. Firms continue with their present policies and goals.

• 2. Double-loop Learning: This is called the “Higher-Level Learning”, “Strategic Learning” :Learning to
expand organization’s capabilities. This occurs when, in additiion to detection and correction of errors,
the organization questions and modifies its existing norms, procedures, policies and objectives.

• 3.Deutero Learning: This occurs when organizations learn HOW to CARRY OUT Single-loop learning
and Double-loop Learning. Being aware of ignorace motivates learning.
• Organisational Learning includes the following;
1- R&D activities.
2- Formal & informal education of employees.
3- Involves the means that organisation uses to disseminate information throughout its ranks and the
way that this information is processed & stored.

• This should result in;

1- Technological innovation.
2- Efficiency improvement.
3- Increase reliability & corporate adaptability.
The conclusion:
1- Higher level of competitiveness.
2- OL is a required element for long-term success.

An Unlearning Organisation will experience the following;

1- In case of low level of OL, it leads to: Stagnant organization that cannot adjust to environment
changes or competitive challenges.
2- Limits the firm ability to reduce costs.
3- Limits the firm inability to change markets or product lines.
 Factors that Contribute to Organisational
Learning
1. Corporate strategy: how organisation is structured to learn from mistakes.

2. Resource allocation: exploration and exploitation.

• Exploration: Means seeking new ideas.
• Exploitation: Means incorporating the new ideas into what a business does.

3. Recognition for the employees’ motivation for learning.

 Advantages of Organisational Learning
• Living with change and challenges.

• Internal harmony: compromise is possible, no right or wrong.

• Managing diversity within organisation

Personality
 OVERVIEW
• Each member of an organization has his or her own style and ways of behaving.
• Effectively working with others requires an understanding and appreciation of how
people differ from one another.
• Managers need to understand individual differences because they have an impact
on the feelings, thoughts, behaviours of each member of an organization.
• Individual differences affect for example: job satisfaction, job performance, job
stress and leadership
• Individual differences can be grouped into: personality differences and differences
in ability.
 Definition
• Psychologists define personality, as a dynamic concept describing the growth and development of
a person’s whole psychological system.

• is the pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person feels, thinks, and behaves.

• you can also think of personality as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and
interacts with others.
 Measuring Personality

• The most important reason managers need to know how to measure

personality is that research has shown personality tests are useful in hiring
decisions and help managers forecast who is best for a job.

• The most common means of measuring personality is through self-report

surveys, with which individuals evaluate themselves on a series of factors,
such as “I worry a lot about the future.
 Personality and the situation
• Personality accounts for observable regularities in people’s attitudes and
behaviours, it also accounts for such regularities at work.
• Personality is useful for explaining and predicting how employees generally feel,
think, and behave on the job.
• Apart from personality, the organizational situation also affects work attitudes and
behaviours. For example situational constraints, pressures (job requirements or
strict rules and regulations) that force people to behave in a certain way.

• Both situational factors and personality affect Organizational Behaviour

 The Big Five Personality Model
• A. Traits
• A specific component of personality that describes the particular tendencies a person has to
feel, think and act in certain ways, such as in shy or outgoing, critical or accepting,
compulsive or easy-going manner.
• B. Extraversion/Neuroticism
• Or positive affectivity,
• Is a personality trait that predisposes individuals to experience positive emotional states that
feel good about themselves and about the world around them.
• Extraverts-people high on the extraversion scale-tend to be sociable, affectionate, and friendly.
• Introverts-people low on the extraversion scale-are less likely to experience positive emotional states
and have fewer social interactions with others.

• Neuroticism
• Or negative affectivity
• Reflects people’s tendencies to experience negative emotional states, feel distressed, and generally
view themselves and the world around them negatively.
• C. Agreeableness
• Is the personality that captures the distinction between individuals who get along
well with other people and those who do not.
• Individuals low on agreeableness are antagonistic, mistrustful, unsympathetic,
uncooperative and rude. Agreeableness is an asset in jobs focused on developing
good relationships with other people.
• D. Conscientiousness
• Is the extent to which an individual is careful, scrupulous, and persevering.
• Individuals high on conscientiousness are organized and have a lot of self-
discipline.
• Individuals low on conscientiousness may lack direction and self-discipline.
• Conscientiousness is important in many organizational situations and has been
found to be a good predictor of performance in many jobs in a wide variety of
organizations.

• E. Openness to Experience
• This captures the extent to which an individual is original, open to a wide variety of
stimuli, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks as opposed to being narrow-
minded and cautious.
 Summary of the Five Big Personality and Relevance to OB
Big five personality Why is it relevant? What does it affect?
Emotional stability(Traits) Less negative thinking and fewer Higher job & life satisfaction •
negative emotions Lower stress levels
• Less hypervigilant

Extraversion Better interpersonal skills • Higher performance*

• Greater social dominance • Enhanced leadership
• More emotionally expressive • Higher job & life satisfaction

Openness Increased learning Training performance

• More creative • Enhanced leadership
• More flexible & autonomous • More adaptable to change
The big five traits Why is it relevant? What does it affect?
Agreeableness .Better
liked Higher performance*
• More compliant and • Lower levels of deviant
conforming behavior

Conscientiousness Greater effort & • Higher performance •

persistence • More drive Enhanced leadership •
and discipline Greater longevity
• Better organized &
planning
 Managerial Implications
• Factors such as job demands, the degree of required interaction with others, and the organization’s
culture are examples of situational variables that moderate the personality–job performance
relationship.
• You need to evaluate the job, the work group, and the organization to determine the optimal
personality fit.
 Questions
• 1. What value, if any, does the Big Five personality model provide to managers?.
• 2. Why is understanding the perception of employees within an organisation important ?
• 3. What are the contributions of organisational learning to organisations?
Thanks for Listening