Chapter 5: Personality and

Values
Personality
 Personality - the sum total
of ways in which an individual
reacts to and interacts with
others
 Most often described in terms
of measurable traits that a
person exhibits such as shy,
aggressive, submissive, lazy,
ambitious, loyal, and timid
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 Measuring Personality
 Self-report surveys
 Most common
 Prone to error
 Evaluate on a series of
factors

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 Personality Determinants
 Personality reflects heredity and environment
 Heredity is the most dominant factor
 Twin studies: genetics more influential than parents
 Environmental factors do have some influence
 Aging influences levels of ability
 Basic personality is constant

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Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator
 Most widely used personality-assessment
instrument in the world
 Individuals are classified as:
 Extroverted or Introverted (E/I)
 Sensing or Intuitive (S/N)
 Thinking or Feeling (T/F)
 Judging or Perceiving (J/P)
 Classifications combined into 16 personality
types (i.e. INTJ or ESTJ)
 Unrelated to job performance
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Measuring Personality Traits:
The Big-Five Model
 Five Traits:
 Extraversion
 Agreeableness
 Conscientiousness
 Emotional Stability
 Openness to Experience
 Strongly supported
relationship to job
performance (especially
Conscientiousness) 5-7
Big Five Traits and OB

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 Other Personality Traits
 Core Self-Evaluation
 People with positive core self-evaluation like
themselves and see themselves as capable and
effective in the workplace
 Machiavellianism
 High machs tend to be pragmatic, emotionally
distant and believe the ends justify the means
 Narcissism
 A person with a grandiose view of self, requires
excessive admiration, has a sense of self-entitlement
and is arrogant
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 Major Personality
Attributes Influencing OB
 Self-monitoring
 Adjusts behavior to meet
external, situational
factors
 Risk Taking
 Willingness to accept risk
 Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action
and perseveres
 Other Orientation
Pay me back vs. pay me forward
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 Values
 Values represent basic, enduring convictions
that "a specific mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is personally or socially preferable to
an opposite or converse mode of conduct or
end-state of existence"

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 Value Systems
 Represent a prioritizing of individual values by:
 Content – importance to the individual
 Intensity – relative importance with other values
 The hierarchy tends to be relatively stable
 Values are the foundation for attitudes,
motivation, and behavior
 Influence perception and cloud objectivity

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 Rokeach Value Survey
 Terminal values:  Instrumental
desirable end-states values:
of existence preferable modes of
 Goals that a person behavior or means
would like to achieve of achieving the
during his or her terminal values
lifetime

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 Examples of Terminal
Values
 A comfortable life (a prosperous life)
 An exciting life (stimulating, active life)
 A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution)
 A world of peace (free of war and conflict)
 A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts)
 Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)
 Family security (taking care of loved ones)
 Freedom (independence, free choice)
 Happiness (contentedness)
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 Examples of Terminal
Values
 Ambitious (hard working, aspiring)
 Broad-minded (open-minded)
 Capable (competent, efficient)
 Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)
 Clean (neat, tidy)
 Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)
 Forgiving (willing to pardon others)
 Helpful (working for the welfare of others)
 Honest (sincere, truthful)
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 Personality-Job Fit:
Holland’s Hexagon
 Job satisfaction and turnover
depend on congruency
between personality and task
 Fields adjacent are similar
 Field opposite are dissimilar

 Vocational Preference Inventory Questionnaire

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Person-Organization Fit
 It is more important that
employees’ personalities fit
with the organizational
culture than with the
characteristics of any specific
job
 The fit predicts job
satisfaction, organizational
commitment and turnover
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 International Values
 Values differ across cultures
 Two frameworks for assessing culture:
 Hofstede
 GLOBE

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 Hofstede’s Framework
for Assessing Cultures
 Five factors:
1. Power Distance
2. Individualism vs. Collectivism
3. Masculinity vs. Femininity
4. Uncertainty Avoidance
5. Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation

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 GLOBE* Framework
for Assessing Cultures
Ongoing study with nine factors:
 Assertiveness  Individualism/
 Future orientation collectivism
 In-group collectivism
 Gender differentiation
 Performance
 Uncertainty avoidance orientation
 Power distance  Humane orientation

*Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness 5-20

Implications for Managers
 Personality
 Evaluate the job, group, and organization to
determine the best fit
 Big Five is best to use for selection
 MBTI for development and training
 Values
 Strongly influence attitudes, behaviors, and
perceptions
 Match the individual values to organizational culture

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 Keep in Mind…
 Personality
 The sum total of ways in which individual
reacts to, and interacts with others
 Easily measured
 Big Five Personality Traits
 Related to many OB criteria
 May be very useful in predicting behavior
 Values
 Vary between and within cultures

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