Scribd
Upload
13 views5 pages

Week 4 and 5

The document discusses organizational behavior, focusing on individual behavior, group dynamics, and organizational aspects that influence employee actions at work. Key topics include personality traits, emotional intelligence, and the impact of attitudes on job performance, absenteeism, and turnover. It emphasizes the importance of understanding these factors for improving workplace productivity and culture.

Uploaded by

daintylittlegal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
13 views5 pages

Week 4 and 5

The document discusses organizational behavior, focusing on individual behavior, group dynamics, and organizational aspects that influence employee actions at work. Key topics include personality traits, emotional intelligence, and the impact of attitudes on job performance, absenteeism, and turnover. It emphasizes the importance of understanding these factors for improving workplace productivity and culture.

Uploaded by

daintylittlegal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

Week 4 & 5: Individual Behaviour

Organizational behaviour: The study of the actions of people at work and addresses not just visible
issues (e.g., strategies, goals) but also hidden elements that influence how employees behave at work. It
can be separated into three areas:
- Individual behaviour- attitudes, personality, perception, learning, and motivation
- Group behaviour- norms, roles, team building, leadership, and conflict
- Organizational aspects- structure, culture, and human resource policies and practices
Goals of organizational behaviour: To explain, predict, and influence behaviour. The employee
behaviours that we are specifically concerned about are:
- Employee productivity – a performance measure of both efficiency and effectiveness
- Absenteeism – the failure to show up for work.
- Turnover – the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization
- Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) – self-initiated behaviour that is not part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, but which promotes the effective functioning of the
organization. (e.g., showing pride when representing the organisation, help others when they are
absent)
- Workplace misbehaviour- is any intentional employee behaviour that is potentially harmful to the
organization or individuals within the organization. (e.g., Intentionally working slower than
possible, take company property without permission)

Organisational behaviour is determined by: Personality & Belief, Emotion, and Attitude
Personality: The tendency to behave in a certain way.
- ~50% of personality is inherited.
- People become more agreeable and docile as they get older.
- Personality is less likely to be expressed in stronger situations (people think & behave the same)
as compared to weaker situations.

Frameworks used to describe personality:


- MBTI
Issues with MBTI:
 Test-retest reliability: differing results over short periods of time (personality takes a long
time to change)
 Non-dichotomous: characteristics are not dichotomous.

- Big Five Model

How each characteristic determines the worker’s suitability:

- Conscientiousness and emotional stability: Motivational components of personality (Strongest


personality predictors of performance)
- Agreeableness: Effective in jobs requiring cooperation and helpfulness.
- Openness to experience: Linked to higher creativity and adaptability to change.
- Extroversion: Linked to sales and management performance. Related to social interaction and
persuasion.

Proactive Personality: People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere
until meaningful change occur. Research has shown:
- a positive correlation between proactivity and motivation to learn overall performance.
- Proactivity leading to high salary, promotions and career satisfaction.

Characteristics of Narcissism:
- Grandiosity: An inflated sense of self-importance, arrogance, preoccupation with power and
wealth, excessive seeking of admiration.
- Self-entitled
- Lack of concern for and devaluation of others
Destructive Narcissism (DN) although destructive to a manager’s job performance, can help a manager
rise in an organisation due to:
- The ability to cover up with outward self-confidence, enthusiasm, drive, ability to charm and
manipulate people, glibness, skill at selling themselves, & street smart
- DN behaviour is mostly directed at subordinates.
How DN is destructive to a company:

- Their grandiosity, devaluation of subordinates, sense of entitlement, lack of values, and search
for excitement can do significant damage to an organization.
- Driving away the most talented people.
- Diverting people’s energies away from their real work (office politics)
- Fostering problematic culture
- Making reckless business decisions

How to avoid DN managers:


- 360-degree feedback for early recognition
- Moving to another department or position

Why management should understand personality:


- Social desirability-- Check through personal assessment (several rounds)
- Aids in the development of organisational culture
- Understand what can and cannot be changed.
- Personality-job fit -- Job satisfaction and turnover are related to the match between personality
and job for an individual.

Belief, Emotion, and Attitude


Emotional Circumplex

- Activation determines action tendency (approach or avoid)


- Valence determines broadening or narrowing of attention.

Discrete social emotions: guilt, shame, envy, gratitude

- Guilt → Helping behaviours.


- Shame → Avoidance
- Envy → want to become better; hurt your target.
- Gratitude -> more willing to accept advice.

Emotion Intelligence (EI/EQ) is a set of competencies that can be learned and increase with maturity. It
is important for people with low cognitive intelligence since it increases task performance.
EI is composed of:
- Self-awareness: The ability to be aware of what you’re feeling.
- Self-management: The ability to manage one’s own emotions and impulses.
- Self-motivation: The ability to persist in the face of setbacks and failures.
- Empathy: The ability to sense how others are feeling.
- Social skills: The ability to handle the emotions of others.

Intension
*Strong habits can inhibit intentions and behaviours from being the same

Attitude
Attitudes
There are three components of attitude:
- Cognitive: The opinion or belief segment of an attitude  evaluation
- Affective: The emotion or feeling segment of an attitude  feeling
- Behavioural: An intention to behave in a certain way  action

Things that can affect performance dimensions:


- Job satisfaction: an employee’s general attitude toward his or her job.
- Job involvement: the degree to which an employee identifies with his or her job, actively
participates in it, and considers his or her job performance to be important to self-worth.
- Organisational commitment: the degree to which an employee identifies with a particular
organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in that organization.
- Perceived organisational support: employees’ general belief that their organization values their
contribution and cares about their well-being.
Does behaviour always follow from attitudes?

Attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has already occurred: post-
decisional justification (History is written by the winner)

You might also like