M&OB - Individual Behavior

MANAGEMENT AND
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
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Understanding Individuals in Organizations
• The Psychological Contract
– A person’s set of expectations regarding what he or she
will contribute to the organization and what the
organization will provide in return.
• Unlike a business contract, a psychological contract is not written
on paper, nor are all of its terms explicitly negotiated.
• Nature of the Psychological Contract
– Contributions and Inducements
• Individual’s contributions to the organization- effort, skills, ability,
time, loyalty,
• Organization’s inducements to the individual, such as pay and
career opportunities.

The Psychological Contract

The Person-Job Fit
• Person-Job Fit
– The extent to which the individual’s contributions match
the organization’s inducements.
– In theory, each employee has a specific set of needs that
he or she wants fulfilled and a set of job-related behaviors
and abilities to contribute.
– If the organization can take perfect advantage of those
behaviors and abilities and exactly fulfill the employee’s
needs, it will have achieved a perfect person-job fit.

3-5
The Nature of Individual Differences
• Individual Differences are personal attributes that
vary from one person to another:
• Physical
• Psychological
• Emotional
• Individual differences are neither good nor bad.
• Whenever an organization attempts to assess or
account for individual differences among its
employees, it must also be sure to consider the
situation in which behavior occurs.
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Personality and Individual Behavior
• Personality is the relatively stable set of psychological
attributes that distinguish one person from another.
• Managers should strive to understand basic
personality attributes and the ways they can affect
people’s behavior in organizational situations, as well
as their perceptions of and attitudes toward the
organization.

The “Big Five” Personality Traits
• In recent years, researchers have identified
five fundamental personality traits that are
especially relevant to organizations.
• Because these five traits are so important and
receive so much attention, they are referred
to as the “Big Five” personality traits.

(cont’d)
• Agreeableness
– The ability to get along with others
• Conscientiousness
– The number of goals on which a person focuses
• Negative Emotionality
– A trait characterized by moodiness and insecurity

(cont’d)
• Extraversion
– The quality of being comfortable with
relationships; the opposite extreme, introversion,
is characterized by more social discomfort
• Openness
– The capacity to entertain new ideas and to change
as a result of learning new information

The Myers-Briggs Framework
• The Myers-Briggs Framework differentiates people in
terms of four general dimensions.
1. Extroversion (E) Versus Introversion (I)
2. Sensing (S) Versus Intuition (N)
3. Thinking (T) Versus Feeling (F)
4. Judging (J) Verses Perceiving (P)
• To use this framework, the organization has people
complete a questionnaire designed to measure their
personalities on each dimension.

Other Personality Traits at Work
• Locus of Control
– The extent to which people believe their circumstances are
a function of either their own actions or external factors
beyond their control.
• Self-Efficacy
– A person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform a
task.
• Authoritarianism
– The belief that power and status differences are
appropriate within hierarchical social systems such as
organizations.

Other Personality Traits at Work
(cont’d)
• Machiavellianism
– People who behave to gain power and control the behavior of
others.
• Self-Esteem
– The extent to which a person believes she or he is a worthwhile
and deserving individual.
• Risk Propensity
– The degree to which an individual is willing to take chances and
make risky decisions.

Emotional Intelligence
• The concept of emotional intelligence refers to
the extent to which people:
– are self-aware
– can manage their emotions
– can motivate themselves
– can express empathy for others
– possess social skills

Emotional Intelligence (cont’d)
• Self-Awareness
– The basis for the other components that refers to one’s
capacity for being aware of how one is feeling.
• Managing Emotions
– One’s capacity to balance anxiety, fear, and anger so they
do not overly interfere with getting things accomplished.
• Motivating Oneself
– The ability to remain optimistic and continue striving in the
face of setbacks, barriers, and failure.
.

Emotional Intelligence (cont’d)
• Empathy
– A person’s ability to understand how others are
feeling even without being explicitly told.
• Social Skills
– This refers to a person’s ability to get along with
others and to establish positive relationships.

Attitudes
• A person’s complexes of beliefs and feelings about specific
ideas, situations, or other people.
• Important because they are the mechanism through which
most people express their feelings.
• 3 components:
1. affective component – reflects feelings and emotions an individual
has toward a situation.
2. cognitive component – derives from knowledge an individual has
toward a situation.
3. intentional component – reflects how an individual expects to
behave toward or in the situation.

Cognitive Dissonance
• The anxiety a person experiences when she or her
simultaneously possesses two sets of knowledge or
perceptions that are contradictory or incongruent.

Work-Related Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction
– The extent to which a person is gratified or fulfilled by his
or her work.
• While high levels of satisfaction may not lead to high levels of
performance, satisfied employees tend to be absent less often,
make positive contributions, and stay with the organization.
• Organizational Commitment
– A person’s identification with and attachment to the
organization.
• A person with high levels of commitment is likely to see herself as
a true member of the organization and overlook minor sources of
dissatisfaction.

Affect and Mood in Organizations
• Positive Affectivity
– People who possess positive affectivity are upbeat and
optimistic, have an overall sense of well-being, and see
things in a positive light.
• Negative Affectivity
– People characterized by negative affectivity are generally
downbeat and pessimistic, see things in a negative light,
and seem to be perpetually in a bad mood.

Perception and Individual Behavior
• Perception
– The set of processes by which an individual becomes
aware of and interprets information about the
environment.
• Basic Perceptual Processes
– Selective perception
• The process of screening out information that we are
uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs.
– Stereotyping
• The process of categorizing or labeling people on the basis of a
single attribute.

Learnito Study Series for Business Students
Notes, Presentations, MCQs and more available at
www.learnito.com/catalog

M&OB - Individual Behavior

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