by Mason Carpenter, Talya Bauer, and Berrin Erdogan
Successful organizations depend on getting the right mix of individuals in the right positions at the right times. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
Reading this chapter will help
you do the following:
1.
Understand the
roles of personality and values in determining work behaviors.
2.
Explain the
process of perception and how it affects work behaviors.
3.
Identify the
major work attitudes that affect work behaviors.
4.
Define the
concept of person-organization fit and how it affects work behaviors.
5.
List the key
set of behaviors that matter for organizational performance.
6.
Be able to
develop your positive attitude skills.
Individuals
bring a number of differences to work. They have a variety of personalities,
values, and attitudes. When they enter into organizations, their stable or
transient characteristics affect how they behave and perform. Moreover,
companies hire people with the expectation that they have certain knowledge,
skills, abilities, personalities, and values.
Recall
that you are learning about the principles of management through the
planning-organizing-leading-controlling (P-O-L-C) framework. Employees’
personalities, attitudes, and work behaviors affect how managers approach each
P-O-L-C dimension. Here are just a few examples:
·
When conducting environmental
scanning during the planning process, a manager’s perceptions color the
information that is absorbed and processed.
·
Employee preferences for job
design and enrichment (aspects of organizing) may be a function of individuals’
personalities and values.
·
Leading effectively requires an
understanding of employees’ personalities, values, and attitudes.
·
Absenteeism can challenge a
manager’s ability to control costs and performance (both at the group and
individual levels).
Therefore,
it is important for managers to understand the individual characteristics that
matter for employee and manager behaviors.
2.1 Personality and Values
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Identify the
major personality traits that are relevant to organizational behavior.
2.
Explain the
potential pitfalls of personality testing.
3.
Describe the
relationship between personality and work behaviors.
4.
Understand what
values are.
5.
Describe the
link between values and work behaviors.
Personality
© The New Yorker Collection 2007 Mick Stevens from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
If
personality is stable, does this mean that it does not change? You probably
remember how you have changed and evolved as a result of your own life
experiences, parenting style and attention you have received in early
childhood, successes and failures you experienced over the course of your life,
and other life events. In fact, personality does change over long periods of
time. For example, we tend to become more socially dominant, more conscientious
(organized and dependable), and more emotionally stable between the ages of 20
and 40, whereas openness to new experiences tends to decline as we age. [1] In other words, even though we treat personality as
relatively stable, change occurs. Moreover, even in childhood, our personality
matters, and it has lasting consequences for us. For example, studies show that
part of our career success and job satisfaction later in life can be explained
by our childhood personality. [2]
Is
our behavior in organizations dependent on our personality? To some extent,
yes, and to some extent, no. While we will discuss the effects of personality
for employee behavior, you must remember that the relationships we describe are
modest correlations. For example, having a sociable and outgoing personality
may encourage people to seek friends and prefer social situations. This does
not mean that their personality will immediately affect their work behavior. At
work, we have a job to do and a role to perform. Therefore, our behavior may be
more strongly affected by what is expected of us, as opposed to how we want to
behave. Especially in jobs that involve a lot of autonomy, or freedom,
personality tends to exert a strong influence on work behavior, [3]something to consider when engaging in Organizing
activities such as job design or enrichment.
Big Five Personality Traits
How many personality traits are there? How do we even know? In every language, there are many words describing a person’s personality. In fact, in the English language, more than 15,000 words describing personality have been identified. When researchers analyzed the traits describing personality characteristics, they realized that many different words were actually pointing to a single dimension of personality. When these words were grouped, five dimensions seemed to emerge, and these explain much of the variation in our personalities. [4] These five are not necessarily the only traits out there. There are other, specific traits that represent other dimensions not captured by the Big Five. Still, understanding them gives us a good start for describing personality.
The Big Five Personality Traits
Source: Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description
of personality”: The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,59, 1216–1229.
As you can see, the Big Five dimensions are openness,
conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and Neuroticism—if you put the
initials together, you get the acronym OCEAN. Everyone has some degree of each
of these traits; it is the unique configuration of how high a person rates on
some traits and how low on others that produces the individual quality we call
personality.
Openness is
the degree to which a person is curious, original, intellectual, creative, and
open to new ideas. People high in openness seem to thrive in situations that
require flexibility and learning new things. They are highly motivated to learn
new skills, and they do well in training settings. [5] They also have an advantage when they enter into a new
organization. Their open-mindedness leads them to seek a lot of information and
feedback about how they are doing and to build relationships, which leads to
quicker adjustment to the new job. [6] When given support, they tend to be creative. [7] Open people are highly adaptable to change, and teams
that experience unforeseen changes in their tasks do well if they are populated
with people high in openness. [8] Compared with people low in openness, they are also more
likely to start their own business. [9] The potential downside is that they may also be prone
to becoming more easily bored or impatient with routine.
Conscientiousness refers
to the degree to which a person is organized, systematic, punctual,
achievement-oriented, and dependable. Conscientiousness is the one personality
trait that uniformly predicts how high a person’s performance will be across a
variety of occupations and jobs. [10] In fact, conscientiousness is the trait most desired
by recruiters, and highly conscientious applicants tend to succeed in interviews. [11] Once they are hired, conscientious people not only
tend to perform well, but they also have higher levels of motivation to
perform, lower levels of turnover, lower levels of absenteeism, and higher
levels of safety performance at work. [12] One’s conscientiousness is related to career success
and career satisfaction over time. [13] Finally, it seems that conscientiousness is a valuable
trait for entrepreneurs. Highly conscientious people are more likely to start
their own business compared with those who are not conscientious, and their
firms have longer survival rates. [14] A potential downside is that highly conscientious
individuals can be detail-oriented rather than seeing the big picture.
Studies show that there is a relationship between being extraverted and effectiveness as a salesperson. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
Extraversion is
the degree to which a person is outgoing, talkative, sociable, and enjoys
socializing. One of the established findings is that they tend to be effective
in jobs involving sales. [15] Moreover, they tend to be effective as managers and
they demonstrate inspirational leadership behaviors. [16] extraverts do well in social situations, and, as a
result, they tend to be effective in job interviews. Part of this success comes
from preparation, as they are likely to use their social network to prepare for
the interview. [17] extraverts have an easier time than introverts do when
adjusting to a new job. They actively seek information and feedback and build
effective relationships, which helps them adjust. [18] Interestingly, extraverts are also found to be happier
at work, which may be because of the relationships they build with the people
around them and their easier adjustment to a new job. [19] However, they do not necessarily perform well in all
jobs; jobs depriving them of social interaction may be a poor fit. Moreover,
they are not necessarily model employees. For example, they tend to have higher
levels of absenteeism at work, potentially because they may miss work to hang
out with or attend to the needs of their friends. [20]
Agreeableness is
the degree to which a person is affable, tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind,
and warm. In other words, people who are high in agreeableness are likeable
people who get along with others. Not surprisingly, agreeable people help
others at work consistently; this helping behavior does not depend on their
good mood. [21]They are also less likely to retaliate when other
people treat them unfairly. [22] This may reflect their ability to show empathy and to
give people the benefit of the doubt. Agreeable people may be a valuable
addition to their teams and may be effective leaders because they create a fair
environment when they are in leadership positions. [23] At the other end of the spectrum, people low in
agreeableness are less likely to show these positive behaviors. Moreover,
people who are disagreeable are shown to quit their jobs unexpectedly, perhaps
in response to a conflict with a boss or a peer. [24] If agreeable people are so nice, does this mean that
we should only look for agreeable people when hiring? You might expect some
jobs to require a low level of agreeableness. Think about it: When hiring a
lawyer, would you prefer a kind and gentle person or someone who can stand up
to an opponent? People high in agreeableness are also less likely to engage in
constructive and change-oriented communication. [25] Disagreeing with the status quo may create conflict,
and agreeable people may avoid creating such conflict, missing an opportunity
for constructive change.
Neuroticism refers
to the degree to which a person is anxious, irritable, temperamental, and
moody. It is perhaps the only Big Five dimension where scoring high is
undesirable. Neurotic people have a tendency to have emotional adjustment
problems and habitually experience stress and depression. People very high in
Neuroticism experience a number of problems at work. For example, they have
trouble forming and maintaining relationships and are less likely to be someone
people go to for advice and friendship. [26] They tend to be habitually unhappy in their jobs and
report high intentions to leave, but they do not necessarily actually leave
their jobs. [27] Being high in Neuroticism seems to be harmful to one’s
career, as these employees have lower levels of career success (measured with
income and occupational status achieved in one’s career). Finally, if they
achieve managerial jobs, they tend to create an unfair climate at work. [28]
In
contrast, people who are low on Neuroticism—those who have a positive affective
disposition—tend to experience positive moods more often than negative moods.
They tend to be more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their
companies. [29] This is not surprising, as people who habitually see
the glass as half full will notice the good things in their work environment
while those with the opposite character will find more things to complain
about. Whether these people are more successful in finding jobs and companies
that will make them happy, build better relationships at work that increase
their satisfaction and commitment, or simply see their environment as more
positive, it seems that low Neuroticism is a strong advantage in the workplace.
Evaluate Yourself on the Big Five Personality Factors
Go
to http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive to see how you score on these factors.
Other Personality Dimensions
In addition to the Big Five, researchers have proposed
various other dimensions, or traits, of personality. These include
self-monitoring, proactive personality, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
Self-monitoring refers
to the extent to which a person is capable of monitoring his or her actions and
appearance in social situations. People who are social monitors are social
chameleons who understand what the situation demands and act accordingly, while
low social monitors tend to act the way they feel. [30] High social monitors are sensitive to the types of
behaviors the social environment expects from them. Their ability to modify
their behavior according to the demands of the situation they are in and to
manage their impressions effectively are great advantages for them. [31] They are rated as higher performers and emerge as
leaders. [32] They are effective in influencing other people and are
able to get things done by managing their impressions. As managers, however,
they tend to have lower accuracy in evaluating the performance of their
employees. It seems that while trying to manage their impressions, they may
avoid giving accurate feedback to their subordinates to avoid confrontations,
which could hinder a manager’s ability to carry out the Controlling function. [33]
Proactive personality refers to a person’s inclination to fix what is wrong,
change things, and use initiative to solve problems. Instead of waiting to be
told what to do, proactive people take action to initiate meaningful change and
remove the obstacles they face along the way. Proactive individuals tend to be
more successful in their job searches. [34] They also are more successful over the course of their
careers because they use initiative and acquire greater understanding of how
the politics within the company work. [35] Proactive people are valuable assets to their
companies because they may have higher levels of performance. [36] They adjust to their new jobs quickly because they
understand the political environment better and make friends more quickly. [37] Proactive people are eager to learn and engage in many
developmental activities to improve their skills. [38] For all their potential, under some circumstances
proactive personality may be a liability for a person or an organization.
Imagine a person who is proactive but is perceived as too pushy, trying to
change things other people are not willing to let go of, or using their
initiative to make decisions that do not serve a company’s best interests.
Research shows that a proactive person’s success depends on his or her
understanding of the company’s core values, ability, and skills to perform the
job and ability to assess situational demands correctly. [39]
Self-esteem is
the degree to which a person has overall positive feelings about himself or
herself. People with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive light, are
confident, and respect themselves. In contrast, people with low self-esteem
experience high levels of self-doubt and question their self-worth. High
self-esteem is related to higher levels of satisfaction with one’s job and
higher levels of performance on the job. [40] People with low self-esteem are attracted to
situations where they will be relatively invisible, such as large companies. [41]Managing
employees with low self-esteem may be challenging at times because negative
feedback given with the intention of improving performance may be viewed as a
negative judgment on their worth as an employee. Therefore, effectively
managing employees with relatively low self-esteem requires tact and providing
lots of positive feedback when discussing performance incidents.
Self-Esteem Around the Globe
Which nations have the highest average self-esteem?
Researchers asked this question by surveying almost 17,000 individuals across
53 nations, in 28 languages.
On the basis of this survey, these are the top 10
nations in terms of self-reported self-esteem:
1.
Serbia
2.
Chile
3.
Israel
4.
Peru
5.
Estonia
6.
United States
of America
7.
Turkey
8.
Mexico
9.
Croatia
10.
Austria
The following are the 10 nations with the lowest
self-reported self-esteem:
1.
South Korea
2.
Switzerland
3.
Morocco
4.
Slovakia
5.
Fiji
6.
Taiwan
7.
Czech Republic
8.
Bangladesh
9.
Hong Kong
10.
Japan
Source: Adapted from information in Denissen, J. J. A.,
Penke, L., & Schmitt, D. P. (2008, July). Self-esteem reactions to social
interactions: Evidence for sociometer mechanisms across days, people, and
nations. Journal
of Personality & Social Psychology, 95, 181–196; Hitti, M. (2005). Who’s No. 1 in self-esteem? Serbia
is tops, Japan ranks lowest, U.S. is no. 6 in global survey. WebMD. Retrieved
November 14, 2008, from http://www.webmd.com/skin-beauty/news/20050927/whos-number-1-in-self-esteem; Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). The
simultaneous administration of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale in 53 nationals:
Culture-specific features of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 623–642.
Self-efficacy is
a belief that one can perform a specific task successfully. Research shows that
the belief that we can do something is a good predictor of whether we can
actually do it. Self-efficacy is different from other personality traits in
that it is job specific. You may have high self-efficacy in being successful
academically, but low self-efficacy in relation to your ability to fix your
car. At the same time, people have a certain level of generalized
self-efficacy, and they have the belief that whatever task or hobby they
tackle, they are likely to be successful in it.
Research
shows that self-efficacy at work is related to job performance. [42] This is probably because people with high
self-efficacy actually set higher goals for themselves and are more committed
to their goals, whereas people with low self-efficacy tend to procrastinate. [43] Academic self-efficacy is a good predictor of your
grade point average, as well as whether you persist in your studies or drop out
of college. [44]
Is
there a way of increasing employee’s self-efficacy? In addition to hiring
people who are capable of performing the required job tasks, training people to
increase their self-efficacy may be effective. Some people may also respond
well to verbal encouragement. By showing that you believe they can be
successful and effectively playing the role of cheerleader, a manager may be
able to increase self-efficacy beliefs. Empowering people—giving them
opportunities to test their skills so that they can see what they are capable
of—is also a good way of increasing self-efficacy. [45]
Personality Testing in Employee
Selection
Personality
is a potentially important predictor of work behavior. In job interviews,
companies try to assess a candidate’s personality and the potential for a good
match, but interviews are only as good as the people conducting them. In fact,
interviewers are not particularly good at detecting the best trait that
predicts performance: conscientiousness. [46]
One
method some companies use to improve this match and detect the people who are
potentially good job candidates is personality testing. Several companies
conduct preemployment personality tests. Companies using them believe that
these tests improve the effectiveness of their selection and reduce turnover. For
example, Overnight Transportation in Atlanta found that using such tests
reduced their on-the-job delinquency by 50%–100%. [47]
Companies such as Kronos and Hogan Assessments conduct
preemployment personality tests. Kronos Incorporated Headquarters is located in
Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
Yet, are these methods good ways of employee
selection? Experts have not yet reached an agreement on this subject and the
topic is highly controversial. Some experts cite data indicating that personality
tests predict performance and other important criteria such as job
satisfaction. However, we must understand that how a personality test is used
influences its validity. Imagine filling out a personality test in class. You
will probably fill it out as honestly as you can. Then, if your instructor
correlates your personality scores with your class performance, we could say
that the correlation is meaningful. But now imagine that your instructor tells
you, before giving you the test, that based on your test scores, you will
secure a coveted graduate assistant position, which comes with a tuition waiver
and a stipend. In that case, would you still fill out the test honestly or
would you try to make your personality look as “good” as possible?
In
employee selection, where the employees with the “best” personalities will be
the ones receiving a job offer, a complicating factor is that people filling
out the survey do not have a strong incentive to be honest. In fact, they have
a greater incentive to guess what the job requires and answer the questions in
a way they think the company is looking for. As a result, the rankings of the
candidates who take the test may be affected by their ability to fake. Some
experts believe that this is a serious problem. [48] Others point out that even with faking the
tests remain valid—the scores are related to job performance. [49] It is even possible that the ability
to fake is related to a personality trait that increases success at work, such
as social monitoring.
Scores
on personality self-assessments are distorted for other reasons beyond the fact
that some candidates can fake better than others. Do we even know our own
personalities? Are we the best person to ask this question? How supervisors,
coworkers, and customers see our personality may matter more than how we see
ourselves. Therefore, using self-report measures of performance may not be the
best way of measuring someone’s personality. [50] We have our blind areas. We may also
give “aspirational” answers. If you are asked whether you are honest, you may
think “yes, I always have the intention to be honest.” This actually says
nothing about your actual level of honesty.
Another problem with using these tests is the
uncertain relationship between performance and personality. On the basis of
research, personality is not a particularly strong indicator of how a person
will perform. According to one estimate, personality only explains about
10%–15% of variation in job performance. Our performance at work depends on
many factors, and personality does not seem to be the key factor for
performance. In fact, cognitive ability (your overall mental intelligence) is a
more powerful predictor of job performance. Instead of personality tests,
cognitive ability tests may do a better job of predicting who will be good
performers. Personality is a better predictor of job satisfaction and other
attitudes, but screening people out on the assumption that they may be unhappy
at work is a challenging argument to make in an employee selection context.
In any case, if an organization decides to use these
tests for selection, it is important to be aware of their limitations. If they
are used together with other tests, such as tests of cognitive abilities, they
may contribute to making better decisions. The company should ensure that the
test fits the job and actually predicts performance. This is called validating
the test. Before giving the test to applicants, the company could give it to
existing employees to find out the traits that are most important for success
in this particular company and job. Then, in the selection context, the company
can pay particular attention to those traits.
Finally,
the company also needs to make sure that the test does not discriminate against
people on the basis of sex, race, age, disabilities, and other legally
protected characteristics. Rent-a-Center experienced legal difficulties when
the test they used was found to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA). The company used the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for
selection purposes, but this test was developed to diagnose severe mental
illnesses; it included items such as “I see things or people around me others
do not see.” In effect, the test served the purpose of a clinical evaluation
and was discriminating against people with mental illnesses, which is a
protected category under ADA. [51]
Values
Values refer
to people’s stable life goals, reflecting what is most important to them.
Values are established throughout one’s life as a result of accumulating life
experiences, and values tend to be relatively stable. [52] The values that are important to a
person tend to affect the types of decisions they make, how they perceive their
environment, and their actual behaviors. Moreover, a person is more likely to
accept a job offer when the company possesses the values he or she cares about. [53] Value attainment is one reason people
stay in a company. When a job does not help them attain their values, they are
likely to decide to leave if they are dissatisfied with the job. [54]
What
are the values people care about? As with personality dimensions, researchers
have developed several frameworks, or typologies, of values. One of the
particularly useful frameworks includes 10 values. [55]
A person who has a strong stimulation orientation may pursue extreme sports. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
Values a person holds will affect their employment.
For example, someone who values stimulation highly may seek jobs that involve
fast action and high risk, such as firefighter, police officer, or emergency
medicine. Someone who values achievement highly may be likely to become an
entrepreneur or intrapreneur. And an individual who values benevolence and
universalism may seek work in the nonprofit sector with a charitable
organization or in a “helping profession,” such as nursing or social work. Like
personality, values have implications for Organizing activities, such as
assigning duties to specific jobs or developing the chain of command; employee
values are likely to affect how employees respond to changes in the
characteristics of their jobs.
In
terms of work behaviors, a person is more likely to accept a job offer when the
company possesses the values he or she cares about. A firm’s values are often
described in the company’s mission and vision statements, an element of the
Planning function. [56] Value attainment is one reason people stay in a
company. When a job does not help them attain their values, they are likely to
decide to leave if they are also dissatisfied with the job. [57]
KEY TAKEAWAY
Personality traits and values are
two dimensions on which people differ. Personality is the unique, relatively
stable pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behavior that each individual
displays. Big Five personality dimensions (openness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, and Neuroticism) are important traits; others that
are particularly relevant for work behavior include self-efficacy, self-esteem,
social monitoring, and proactive personality. While personality is a stronger
influence over job attitudes, its relation to job performance is weaker. Some
companies use personality testing to screen out candidates. Companies using
personality tests are advised to validate their tests and use them to
supplement other techniques with greater validity, such as tests of cognitive
ability. Companies must also ensure that a test does not discriminate against
any protected group. Values express a person’s life goals; they are similar to
personality traits in that they are relatively stable over time. In the
workplace, a person is more likely to accept a job that provides opportunities
for value attainment. People are also more likely to remain in a job and career
that satisfy their values.
EXERCISES
1.
Think about the
personality traits covered in this section. Can you think of jobs or
occupations that seem particularly suited to each trait? Which traits would be
universally desirable across all jobs?
2.
What are the
unique challenges of managing employees who have low self-efficacy and
self-esteem? How would you deal with this situation?
3.
What are some
methods that companies can use to assess employee personality?
4.
Have you ever
held a job where your personality did not match the demands of the job? How did
you react to this situation? How were your attitudes and behaviors affected?
5.
Identify ways
in which the Big Five (of the manager and/or the employees) may affect how you
as a manager would carry out the Leadership function.
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study of the moderating role of extraversion: Leader-member exchange,
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perception and decision making: A study of alternative work values measures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 666–673.
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and turnover intentions: Interactive effects of value attainment, job
satisfaction, and positive mood. Journal
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318–325.
2.2 Perception
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Understand the
influence of biases in the process of perception.
2.
Describe how we
perceive visual objects and how these tendencies may affect our behavior.
3.
Describe the
biases of self-perception.
4.
Describe the
biases inherent in our perceptions of other people.
Our
behavior is not only a function of our personality and values but also of the
situation. We interpret our environment, formulate responses, and act
accordingly. Perception may
be defined as the process by which individuals detect and interpret
environmental stimuli. What makes human perception so interesting is that we do
not solely respond to the stimuli in our environment. We go beyond the
information that is present in our environment, pay selective attention to some
aspects of the environment, and ignore other elements that may be immediately
apparent to other people.
Our
perception of the environment is not entirely rational. For example, have you
ever noticed that while glancing at a newspaper or a news Web site, information
that is especially interesting or important to you jumps out of the page and
catches your eye? If you are a sports fan, while scrolling down the pages, you
may immediately see a news item describing the latest success of your team. If
you are the mother of a picky eater, an advice column on toddler feeding may be
the first thing you see when looking at the page. If you were recently turned
down for a loan, an item of financial news may jump out at you. Therefore, what
we see in the environment is a function of what we value, our needs, our fears,
and our emotions. [1] In fact, what we see in the environment may be
objectively flat out wrong because of such mental tendencies. For example, one
experiment showed that when people who were afraid of spiders were shown
spiders, they inaccurately thought that the spider was moving toward them. [2]
In this section, we will describe some common
perceptual tendencies we engage in when perceiving objects or other people and
the consequences of such perceptions. Our coverage of these perceptual biases
is not exhaustive—there are many other biases and tendencies that can be found
in the way people perceive stimuli.
Visual Perception
What do you see?
Our visual perception definitely goes beyond the
physical information available to us; this phenomenon is commonly referred to
as “optical illusions.” Artists and designers of everything from apparel to
cars to home interiors make use of optical illusions to enhance the look of the
product. Managers rely on their visual perception to form their opinions about
people and objects around them and to make sense of data presented in graphical
form. Therefore, understanding how our visual perception may be biased is
important.
First,
we extrapolate from the information available to us. Take a look at the first
figure. The white triangle you see in the middle is not really there, but we
extrapolate from the information available to us and see it there. Similarly,
when we look at objects that are partially blocked, we see the whole. [3]
What do you see? Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cup_or_faces_paradox.svg
Now,
look at the next figure. What do you see? Most people look at this figure and
see two faces or a
goblet, depending on which color—black
or white—they focus upon. Our visual
perception is often biased because we do not perceive objects in isolation. The
contrast between our focus of attention and the remainder of the environment
may make an object appear bigger or smaller.
This principle is shown here in the third figure. At
first glance, the circle on the left may appear bigger, but they are the same
size. This is due to the visual comparison of the middle circle on the left
with its surrounding circles, whereas the middle circle on the right is
compared with the bigger circles surrounding it.
How do these tendencies influence behavior in
organizations? The fact that our visual perception is faulty means that managers
should not always take what they see at face value. Let’s say that you do not
like one of your peers and you think that you saw this person surfing the Web
during work hours. Are you absolutely sure, or are you simply filling the gaps?
Have you really seen this person surf unrelated Web sites, or is it possible
that the person was searching for work-related purposes? The tendency to fill
in the gaps also causes our memory to be faulty. Imagine that you have been at
a meeting where several people made comments that you did not agree with. After
the meeting, you may attribute most of these comments to people you did not
like. In other words, you may twist the reality to make your memories more
consistent with your opinions of people.
The tendency to compare and contrast objects and
people to each other also causes problems. For example, if you are a manager
who has been given an office much smaller than the other offices on the floor,
you may feel that your workspace is crowded and uncomfortable. If the same
office is surrounded by smaller offices, you may actually feel that your office
is comfortable and roomy. In short, our biased visual perception may lead to
the wrong inferences about the people and objects around us.
Which of the circles in the middle is bigger?
Self-Perception
Human
beings are prone to errors and biases when perceiving themselves. Moreover, the
type of bias people have depends on their personality. Many people suffer from self-enhancement bias. This is the tendency to overestimate our performance and
capabilities and see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us.
People who have a narcissistic personality are particularly subject to this
bias, but many others also have this bias to varying degrees. [4] At the same time, other people have the opposing
extreme, which may be labeled as self-effacement bias (or modesty bias). This is the tendency to
underestimate our performance and capabilities and to see events in a way that
puts ourselves in a more negative light. We may expect that people with low
self-esteem may be particularly prone to making this error. These tendencies
have real consequences for behavior in organizations. For example, people who
suffer from extreme levels of self-enhancement tendencies may not understand
why they are not getting promoted or rewarded, while those who have a tendency
to self-efface may project low confidence and take more blame for their
failures than necessary.
When
human beings perceive themselves, they are also subject to the false consensus error. Simply put, we overestimate how similar we are to other
people. [5] We assume that whatever quirks we have are shared by a
larger number of people than in reality. People who take office supplies home,
tell white lies to their boss or colleagues, or take credit for other people’s
work to get ahead may genuinely feel that these behaviors are more common than
they really are. The problem for behavior in organizations is that, when people
believe that a behavior is common and normal, they may repeat the behavior more
freely. Under some circumstances, this may lead to a high level of unethical or
even illegal behaviors.
Social Perception
How we perceive other people in our environment is
also shaped by our biases. Moreover, how we perceive others will shape our
behavior, which in turn will shape the behavior of the person we are
interacting with.
One
of the factors biasing our perception is stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations based on a group
characteristic. For example, believing that women are more cooperative than men
or that men are more assertive than women are stereotypes. Stereotypes may be
positive, negative, or neutral. In the abstract, stereotyping is an adaptive
function—we have a natural tendency to categorize the information around us to
make sense of our environment. Just imagine how complicated life would be if we
continually had to start from scratch to understand each new situation and each
new person we encountered! What makes stereotypes potentially discriminatory
and a perceptual bias is the tendency to generalize from a group to a
particular individual. If the belief that men are more assertive than women
leads to choosing a man over an equally qualified female candidate for a
position, the decision will be biased, unfair, and potentially illegal.
Stereotypes
often create a situation called self-fulfilling prophecy. This happens when an established stereotype causes
one to behave in a certain way, which leads the other party to behave in a way
that confirms the stereotype. [6] If you have a stereotype such as “Asians are
friendly,” you are more likely to be friendly toward an Asian person. Because
you are treating the other person more nicely, the response you get may also be
nicer, which confirms your original belief that Asians are friendly. Of course,
just the opposite is also true. Suppose you believe that “young employees are
slackers.” You are less likely to give a young employee high levels of
responsibility or interesting and challenging assignments. The result may be
that the young employee reporting to you may become increasingly bored at work
and start goofing off, confirming your suspicions that young people are
slackers!
Stereotypes
persist because of a process called selective perception. Selective perception simply means that we pay selective attention to parts
of the environment while ignoring other parts, which is particularly important
during the Planning process. Our background, expectations, and beliefs will shape
which events we notice and which events we ignore. For example, an executive’s
functional background will affect the changes he or she perceives in the
environment. [7] Executives with a background in sales and marketing
see the changes in the demand for their product, while executives with a
background in information technology may more readily perceive the changes in
the technology the company is using. Selective perception may also perpetuate
stereotypes because we are less likely to notice events that go against our
beliefs. A person who believes that men drive better than women may be more
likely to notice women driving poorly than men driving poorly. As a result, a
stereotype is maintained because information to the contrary may not even reach
our brain!
Let’s
say we noticed information that goes against our beliefs. What then?
Unfortunately, this is no guarantee that we will modify our beliefs and prejudices.
First, when we see examples that go against our stereotypes, we tend to come up
with subcategories. For example, people who believe that women are more
cooperative when they see a female who is assertive may classify her as a
“career woman.” Therefore, the example to the contrary does not violate the
stereotype and is explained as an exception to the rule. [8] Or, we may simply discount the information. In one
study, people in favor of and against the death penalty were shown two studies,
one showing benefits for the death penalty while the other disconfirming any
benefits. People rejected the study that went against their belief as
methodologically inferior and ended up believing in their original position
even more! [9] In other words, using data to debunk people’s beliefs
or previously established opinions may not necessarily work, a tendency to
guard against when conducting Planning and Controlling activities.
First impressions are lasting. A job interview is one situation where first impressions formed during the first few minutes may have consequences for your relationship with your future boss or colleagues. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
One
other perceptual tendency that may affect work behavior is first impressions. The first impressions we form about people tend to
have a lasting effect. In fact, first impressions, once formed, are
surprisingly resilient to contrary information. Even if people are told that
the first impressions were caused by inaccurate information, people hold on to
them to a certain degree because once we form first impressions, they become
independent from the evidence that created them. [10] Therefore, any information we receive to the contrary
does not serve the purpose of altering them. Imagine the first day that you met
your colleague Anne. She treated you in a rude manner, and when you asked for
her help, she brushed you off. You may form the belief that Anne is a rude and
unhelpful person. Later on, you may hear that Anne’s mother is seriously ill,
making Anne very stressed. In reality, she may have been unusually stressed on
the day you first met her. If you had met her at a time when her stress level
was lower, you could have thought that she is a really nice person. But chances
are, your impression that she is rude and unhelpful will not change even when
you hear about her mother. Instead, this new piece of information will be added
to the first one: She is rude, unhelpful, and her mother is sick.
As a manager, you can protect yourself against this
tendency by being aware of it and making a conscious effort to open your mind
to new information. It would also be to your advantage to pay careful attention
to the first impressions you create, particularly during job interviews.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Perception is how we make sense
of our environment in response to environmental stimuli. While perceiving our
surroundings, we go beyond the objective information available to us and our
perception is affected by our values, needs, and emotions. There are many
biases that affect human perception of objects, self, and others. When
perceiving the physical environment, we fill in the gaps and extrapolate from
the available information. When perceiving others, stereotypes influence our
behavior. Stereotypes may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. Stereotypes are
perpetuated because of our tendency to pay selective attention to aspects of
the environment and ignore information inconsistent with our beliefs.
Understanding the perception process gives us clues to understanding human
behavior.
EXERCISES
1.
What are some
of the typical errors, or optical illusions, that we experience when we observe
physical objects?
2.
What are the
problems of false consensus error? How can managers deal with this tendency?
3.
Describe a
situation where perception biases have or could affect any of the P-O-L-C
facets. Use an example you have experienced or observed, or, if you do not have
such an example, create a hypothetical situation. How do we manage the fact
that human beings develop stereotypes? Is there such as thing as a good
stereotype? How would you prevent stereotypes from creating unfairness in
management decisions?
4.
Describe a
self-fulfilling prophecy you have experienced or observed in action. Was the
prophecy favorable or unfavorable? If unfavorable, how could the parties have
chosen different behavior to produce a more positive outcome?
[1] Higgins,
E. T., & Bargh, J. A. (1987). Social cognition and social perception. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 369–425; Keltner, D., Ellsworth, P. C., & Edwards, K.
(1993). Beyond simple pessimism: Effects of sadness and anger on social
perception. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 740–752.
[2] Riskind,
J. H., Moore, R., & Bowley, L. (1995). The looming of spiders: The fearful
perceptual distortion of movement and menace. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 171.
[3] Kellman,
P. J., & Shipley, T. F. (1991). A theory of visual interpolation in object
perception. Cognitive
Psychology, 23, 141–221.
[4] John,
O. P., & Robins, R. W. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception:
Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism.Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 206–219.
[5] Fields,
J. M., & Schuman, H. (1976). Public beliefs about the beliefs of the public. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 40 (4), 427–448; Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The
“false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and
attribution processes. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, 13,
279–301.
[6] Snyder,
M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. (1977). Social perception and
interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes.Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 656–666.
[7] Waller,
M. J., Huber, G. P., & Glick, W. H. (1995). Functional background as a
determinant of executives’ selective perception. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 943–974.
[8] Higgins,
E. T., & Bargh, J. A. (1987). Social cognition and social perception. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 369–425.
[9] Lord,
C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude
polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered
evidence. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098–2109.
[10] Ross,
L., Lepper, M. R., & Hubbard, M. (1975). Perseverance in self-perception
and social perception: Biased attributional processes in the debriefing
paradigm. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 880–892.
2.3 Work Attitudes
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Define what
work attitudes are.
2.
Define and
differentiate between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
3.
List several
important factors influencing job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
4.
Identify two
ways companies can track attitudes in the workplace.
How
we behave at work often depends on how we feel about being there. Therefore,
making sense of how people behave depends on understanding their work
attitudes. An attitude refers
to our opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment. We
have attitudes toward the food we eat, people we meet, courses we take, and
things we do. At work, two job attitudes have the greatest potential to
influence how we behave. These are job satisfaction and organizational
commitment.
Job satisfaction refers to the feelings people have toward their job.
If the number of studies conducted on job satisfaction is an indicator, job
satisfaction is probably the most important job attitude. Institutions such as
Gallup or the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) periodically conduct
studies of job satisfaction to track how satisfied employees are at work.
According to a recent Gallup survey, 90% of the employees surveyed said that
they were at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs. A recent SHRM study
revealed 40% who were very satisfied. [1]
Organizational commitment is the emotional attachment people have toward the
company they work for. A highly committed employee is one who accepts and
believes in the company’s values, is willing to put out effort to meet the
company’s goals, and has a strong desire to remain with the company. People who
are committed to their company often refer to their company as “we” as opposed
to “they” as in “in this company, we have great benefits.” The way we refer to
the company indicates the type of attachment and identification we have with
the company.
There is a high degree of overlap between job
satisfaction and organizational commitment because things that make us happy
with our job often make us more committed to the company as well. Companies
believe that these attitudes are worth tracking because they often are
associated with outcomes that are important to the Controlling role, such as
performance, helping others, absenteeism, and turnover.
What Causes Positive Work
Attitudes?
What makes you satisfied with your job and develop
commitment to your company? Research shows that people pay attention to several
factors of their work environment, including characteristics of the job (a function
of Organizing activities), how they are treated (related to Leadership
actions), the relationships they form with colleagues and managers (also
Leadership related), and the level of stress the job entails.
As we have seen earlier in this chapter, personality
and values play important roles in how employees feel about their jobs.
Job Characteristics
Employees
tend to be more satisfied and committed in jobs that involve certain
characteristics. The ability to use a variety of skills, having autonomy at
work, receiving feedback on the job, and performing a significant task are some
job characteristics that are related to satisfaction and commitment. However,
the presence of these factors is not important for everyone. Some people have a
high need for growth. These employees tend to be more satisfied when their jobs
help them build new skills and improve. [2]
Organizational Justice and the
Psychological Contract
A
strong influence over our satisfaction level is how fairly we are treated.
People pay attention to the fairness of company policies and procedures, fair
and kind treatment from supervisors, and fairness of their pay and other
rewards they receive from the company. [3]Organizational justice can be classified into three categories:
(1) procedural (fairness in the way policies and processes are carried out),
(2) distributive (the allocation of resources or compensation and benefits),
and (3) interactional (the degree to which people are treated with dignity and
respect). At the root of organizational justice is trust, something that is
easier to break than to repair if broken.
The psychological contract is the unspoken, informal understanding that an
employee will contribute certain things to the organization (e.g., work ability
and a willing attitude) and will receive certain things in return (e.g.,
reasonable pay and benefits). Under the psychological contract, an employee may
believe that if he or she works hard and receives favorable performance
evaluations, he or she will receive an annual bonus, periodic raises and
promotions, and will not be laid off. Since the “downsizing” trend of the past
20 years, many commentators have declared that the psychological contract is
violated more often than not.
Relationships at Work
Two
strong predictors of our happiness at work and commitment to the company are
our relationships with coworkers and managers. The people we interact with, how
friendly they are, whether we are socially accepted in our work group, whether
we are treated with respect by them are important to our happiness at work.
Research also shows that our relationship with our manager, how considerate the
manager is, and whether we build a trust-based relationship with our manager
are critically important to our job satisfaction and organizational commitment. [4] When our manager and overall management listen to us,
care about us, and value our opinions, we tend to feel good at work. When
establishing effective relations with employees, little signals that you care
about your employees go a long way. For example, in 2004 San Francisco’s Hotel
Carlton was taken over and renovated by a new management group, Joie de Vivre
Hospitality. One of the small things the new management did that created
dramatic results was that, in response to an employee attitude survey, they
replaced the old vacuum cleaners housekeepers were using and started replacing
them every year. It did not cost the company much to replace old machinery, but
this simple act of listening to employee problems and taking action went a long
way to make employees feel better. [5]
Stress
Not surprisingly, the amount of stress present in a
job is related to employee satisfaction and commitment. Stressors range from
environmental ones (noise, heat, inadequate ventilation) to interpersonal ones
(organizational politics, conflicts with coworkers) to organizational ones
(pressure to avoid making mistakes, worrying about the security of the job).
Some jobs, such as intensive care unit nurse and military fighter pilot, are
inherently very stressful.
Another source of stress has to do with the roles
people are expected to fulfill on and off the job. Role ambiguity is
uncertainty about what our responsibilities are in the job. Role conflict
involves contradictory demands at work; it can also involve conflict between
fulfilling one’s role as an employee and other roles in life, such as the role
of parent, friend, or community volunteer.
Generally
speaking, the higher the stress level, the lower job satisfaction tends to be.
But not all stress is bad, and some stressors actually make us happier! For
example, working under time pressure and having a high degree of responsibility
are stressful, but they are also perceived as challenges and tend to be related
to high levels of satisfaction. [6]
Assessing Work Attitudes in the
Workplace
Given
that work attitudes may give us clues about who will leave or stay, who will
perform better, and who will be more engaged, tracking satisfaction and
commitment levels is a helpful step for companies. If there are companywide
issues that make employees unhappy and disengaged, these need to be resolved.
There are at least two systematic ways in which companies can track work
attitudes: throughattitude surveys and exit interviews. Companies such as KFC and Long
John Silver restaurants, the SAS Institute, Google, and others give periodic
attitude surveys, which are used to track employee work attitudes. Companies
can get more out of these surveys if responses are held confidential. If
employees become concerned that their individual responses will be shared with
their immediate manager, they are less likely to respond honestly. Moreover,
success of these surveys depends on the credibility of management in the eye of
employees. If management periodically collects these surveys but no action
comes out of them, employees may adopt a more cynical attitude and start
ignoring these surveys, hampering the success of future efforts. Exit interviews involve a meeting with the departing employee. This
meeting is often conducted by a member of the human resource management
department. If conducted well, this meeting may reveal what makes employees
dissatisfied at work and give management clues about areas for improvement.
How strong is the attitude-behavior link? First of
all, it depends on the attitude in question. Your attitudes toward your
colleagues may influence whether you actually help them on a project, but they
may not be a good predictor of whether you quit your job. Second, it is worth
noting that attitudes are more strongly related to intentions to behave in a
certain way, rather than actual behaviors. When you are dissatisfied with your
job, you will have the intention to leave. Whether you actually leave will be a
different story! Your leaving will depend on many factors, such as availability
of alternative jobs in the market, your employability in a different company,
and sacrifices you have to make while changing jobs. Thus, while the attitudes
assessed through employee satisfaction surveys and exit interviews can provide
some basis for predicting how a person might behave in a job, remember that
behavior is also strongly influenced by situational constraints.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Work attitudes are the feelings
we have toward different aspects of the work environment. Job satisfaction and
organizational commitment are two key attitudes that are the most relevant to
important outcomes. In addition to personality and fit with the organization,
work attitudes are influenced by the characteristics of the job, perceptions of
organizational justice and the psychological contract, relationships with
coworkers and managers, and the stress levels experienced on the job. Many
companies assess employee attitudes through surveys of worker satisfaction and
through exit interviews. The usefulness of such information is limited,
however, because attitudes create an intention to behave in a certain way, but
they do not always predict actual behaviors.
EXERCISES
1.
What is the
difference between job satisfaction and organizational commitment? How do the
two concepts relate to one another?
2.
In your
opinion, of the factors that influence work attitudes, which three are the most
important in making people dissatisfied with their jobs? Which three are the
most important relating to organizational commitment?
3.
Do you think
making employees happier at work is a good way of motivating people? When would
high satisfaction not be related to high performance?
4.
How important
is pay in making people attached to a company and making employees satisfied?
5.
Do you think
younger and older people are similar in what makes them happier at work and
makes them committed to their companies? Do you think there are male-female
differences? Explain your answers.
[1] Anonymous.
(2007, August). What keeps employees satisfied? HR Focus,
10–13; Sandberg, J. (2008, April 15). For many employees, a dream job is one
that isn’t a nightmare. Wall
Street Journal, B1.
[2] Loher,
B. T., Noe, R. A., Moeller, N. L., & Fitzgerald, M. P. (1985). A
meta-analysis of the relation of job characteristics to job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 280–289; Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. M. (1990). A review and
meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of
organizational commitment. Psychological
Bulletin, 108, 171–194.
[3] Cohen-Charash,
Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organizations: A
meta-analysis. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86, 278–321; Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter,
C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic
review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 425–445; Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscivitch, L., &
Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the
organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 20–52.
[4] Bauer,
T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007).
Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: A meta-analytic review
of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 92,
707–721; Gerstner, C. R., & Day, D. V. (1997). Meta-analytic review of
leader-member exchange theory: Correlates and construct issues. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(6), 827–844; Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., & Ilies, R.
(2004). The forgotten ones? The validity of consideration and initiating
structure in leadership research. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 89,
36–51; Kinicki, A. J., McKee-Ryan, F. M., Schriesheim, C. A., & Carson, K.
P. (2002). Assessing the construct validity of the job descriptive index: A
review and meta-analysis.Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 14–32;
Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. M. (1990). A review and meta-analysis of the
antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 171–194; Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscivitch, L., &
Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the
organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 20–52; Rhoades, L., & Eisenberger, R. (2002). Perceived
organizational support: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 698–714.
[5] Dvorak,
P. (2007, December 17). Theory and practice: Hotelier finds happiness keeps
staff checked in; focus on morale boosts Joie de Vivre’s grades from workers,
guests. Wall Street Journal,
B3.
[6] Kinicki,
A. J., McKee-Ryan, F. M., Schriesheim, C. A., & Carson, K. P. (2002).
Assessing the construct validity of the job descriptive index: A review and
meta-analysis. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 87,
14–32; Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscivitch, L., & Topolnytsky, L.
(2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A
meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 20–52; Miller, B. K., Rutherford, M. A., & Kolodinsky, R. W.
(2008). Perceptions of organizational politics: A meta-analysis of outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 22, 209–222; Podsakoff, N. P., LePine, J. A., & LePine, M. A.
(2007). Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with
job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: A
meta-analysis. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 92,
438–454.
2.4 The Interactionist Perspective: The Role of Fit
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Differentiate
between person-organization and person-job fit.
2.
Understand the
relationship between person-job fit and work behaviors.
3.
Understand the
relationship between person-organization fit and work behaviors.
As we have seen in the earlier sections of this
chapter, human beings bring in their personality, values, attitudes,
perceptions, and other stable traits to work. Imagine that you are interviewing
an employee who is proactive, creative, and willing to take risks. Would this person
be a good job candidate? What behaviors would you expect this person to
demonstrate?
The questions we pose here are misleading. While human
beings bring their traits to work, every organization is also different, and
every job is different. According to the interactionist perspective, behavior
is a function of the person and the situation interacting with each other.
Think about it. Would a shy person speak up in class? While a shy person may
not feel like speaking if he or she is very interested in the subject, knows
the answers to the questions, feels comfortable within the classroom
environment, and knows that class participation is 30% of the course grade,
this person may speak up in class regardless of his or her shyness. Similarly,
the behavior you may expect from someone who is proactive, creative, and
willing to take risks will depend on the situation.
The
fit between what we bring to our work environment and the environmental demands
influences not only our behavior but also our work attitudes. Therefore,
person-job fit and person-organization fit are positively related to job
satisfaction and commitment. When our abilities match job demands, and when our
values match company values, we tend to be more satisfied with our job and more
committed to the company we work for. [1]
When
companies hire employees, they are interested in assessing at least two types
of fit. Person-organization fit refers to the degree to which a person’s personality,
values, goals, and other characteristics match those of the organization. Person-job fit is the degree to which a person’s knowledge, skills,
abilities, and other characteristics match the job demands. (Human resources
professionals often use the abbreviation KSAO to refer to these four categories
of attributes.) Thus, someone who is proactive and creative may be a great fit
for a company in the high-tech sector that would benefit from risk-taking
individuals but may be a poor fit for a company that puts a high priority on
routine and predictable behavior, such as a nuclear power plant. Similarly,
this proactive and creative person may be a great fit for a field-based job
such as marketing manager but a poor fit for an office job highly dependent on
rules such as accountant.
When
people fit into their organization, they tend to be more satisfied with their
jobs, more committed to their companies, are more influential in their company,
and remain longer in their company. [2] One area of controversy is whether these people
perform better. Some studies found a positive relationship between
person-organization fit and job performance, but this finding was not present
in all studies, so it seems that only sometimes fitting with a company’s
culture predicts job performance. [3] It also seems that fitting in with the company values
is important to some people more than to others. For example, people who have
worked in multiple companies tend to understand the effect of a company’s
culture better and therefore pay closer attention to whether they will fit in
with the company when making their decisions. [4]Also, when they build good relationships with their
supervisors and the company, being a misfit does not seem to matter as much. [5]
KEY TAKEAWAY
While personality, values,
attitudes, perceptions, and KSAOs are important, we need to keep in mind that behavior
is jointly determined by the person and the situation. Certain situations bring
out the best in people, and someone who is a poor performer in one job may turn
into a star employee in a different job. Therefore, managers need to consider
the individual and the situation when making Organizing decisions about the job
or when engaging in Leadership activities like building teams or motivating
employees.
EXERCISES
1.
How can a
company assess person-job fit before hiring employees? What are the methods you
think would be helpful?
2.
How can a
company determine person-organization fit before hiring employees? Which
methods do you think would be helpful?
3.
What can
organizations do to increase person-job and person-organization fit after they hire employees?
[1] Kristof-Brown,
A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of
individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization,
person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58,
281–342; Verquer, M. L., Beehr, T. A., & Wagner, S. H. (2003). A
meta-analysis of relations between person-organization fit and work attitudes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63, 473–489.
[2] Anderson,
C., Spataro, S. E., & Flynn, F. J. (2008). Personality and organizational
culture as determinants of influence. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 93,
702–710; Cable, D. M., & DeRue, D. S. (2002). The convergent and
discriminant validity of subjective fit perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 875–884; Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson,
E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of
person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58,
281–342; O’Reilly, C. A., Chatman, J., & Caldwell, D. F. (1991). People and
organizational culture: A profile comparison approach to assessing
person-organization fit. Academy
of Management Journal, 34,
487–516; Saks, A. M., & Ashforth, B. E. (2002). Is job search related to
employment quality? It all depends on the fit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 646–654.
[3] Arthur,
W., Bell, S. T., Villado, A. J., & Doverspike, D. (2006). The use of
person-organization fit in employment decision making: An assessment of its criterion-related
validity. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 91,
786–801.
[4] Kristof-Brown,
A. L., Jansen, K. J., & Colbert, A. E. (2002). A policy-capturing study of
the simultaneous effects of fit with jobs, groups, and organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 985–993.
[5] Erdogan,
B., Kraimer, M. L., & Liden, R. C. (2004). Work value congruence and
intrinsic career success. Personnel
Psychology, 57, 305–332.
2.5 Work Behaviors
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Define job
performance, organizational citizenship, absenteeism, and turnover.
2.
Explain factors
associated with each type of work behavior.
One of the important objectives of the field of
organizational behavior is to understand why people behave the way they do.
Which behaviors are we referring to here? We will focus on four key work
behaviors: job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, absenteeism,
and turnover. Note that the first two behaviors are desirable ones, whereas the
other two are often regarded as undesirable. While these four are not the only
behaviors organizational behavior is concerned about, if you understand what we
mean by these behaviors and the major influences over each type of behavior,
you will gain more clarity about analyzing the behaviors of others in the
workplace.
Job Performance
Job performance refers to the level to which an employee successfully
fulfills the factors included in the job description. For each job, the content
of job performance may differ. Measures of job performance include quality and quantity
of work performed by the employee, the accuracy and speed with which the job is
performed, and the overall effectiveness of the person on the job.
In many companies, job performance determines whether
a person is promoted, rewarded with pay raises, given additional
responsibilities, or fired from the job. Therefore, most employers observe and
track job performance. This is done by keeping track of data on topics such as
the number of sales the employee closes, the number of clients the employee visits,
the number of defects found in the employee’s output, or the number of customer
complaints or compliments received about the person’s work. In some jobs,
objective performance data may not be available, and instead supervisor,
coworker, customer, and subordinate assessments of the quality and quantity of
work performed by the person become the indicators of job performance. Job
performance is one of the main outcomes studied in organizational behavior and
is an important variable managers must assess when they are engaged in the
Controlling role.
What Are the Major Predictors of
Job Performance?
Under
which conditions do people perform well, and what are the characteristics of
high performers? These questions receive a lot of research attention. It seems
that the most powerful influence over our job performance is our general mental ability also known as cognitive ability or intelligence, and
often abbreviated as “g.” General mental ability can be divided into several
components—reasoning abilities, verbal and numerical skills, and analytical
skills—and it seems to be important across different situations. It seems that
“g” starts influencing us early in our school days because it is strongly
correlated with measures of academic success even in childhood. [1] In adult life, “g” is also correlated with different
measures of job performance. [2] It seems that the influence of “g” on performance is
important across different settings, but there is also variation. In jobs with
high complexity, it is much more critical to have high general mental
abilities. Examples of such jobs are manager, sales representative, engineer,
and professions such as law and medicine. In jobs such as police officer and
clerical worker, the importance of “g” for high performance is still important
but weaker.
Perceptions
of organizational justice and interpersonal relationships are factors determining our performance level. When we
feel that we are being fairly treated by the company, that our manager is
supportive and rewards high performance, and when we trust the people we work
with, we tend to perform better. Why? It seems that when we believe we are
treated well, we want to reciprocate. Therefore, we treat the company well by
performing our job more effectively.
The stress we
experience on the job also determines our performance level. When we are
stressed, our mental energies are drained. Instead of focusing on the task at
hand, we start concentrating on the stressor trying to cope with it. Because
our attention and energies are diverted to dealing with stress, our performance
suffers. Having role ambiguity and experiencing conflicting role demands are
related to lower performance. [3] Stress that prevents us from doing our jobs does not
have to be related to our experiences at work. For example, according to a
survey conducted by Workplace Options, 45% of the respondents said that
financial stress affects work performance. When people are in debt, worrying
about their mortgage payments or college payments of their kids, their
performance will suffer. [4]
Our work attitudes,
particularly job satisfaction, are also correlates of job performance but not
to as great a degree as you might expect. Many studies have been devoted to
understanding whether happy employees are more productive. Some studies show
weak correlations between satisfaction and performance while others show higher
correlations (what researchers would call “medium sized” correlations of .30). [5] The correlation between commitment and performance
tends to be even weaker. [6] Even with a correlation of .30, though, the
relationship may be lower than you may have expected. Why is this the case?
It
seems that happy workers have an inclination to be more engaged at work. They
may want to
perform better. They may be more motivated. But there are also exceptions.
Think about this: Because you want to perform, does this mean that you will actually
perform better? Chances are your skill level in performing the job will matter.
There are also some jobs where performance depends on factors beyond an
employee’s control, such as the pace of the machine they are working on.
Because of this reason, in professional jobs such as with engineers and
researchers, we see a stronger link between work attitudes and performance, as
opposed to manual jobs such as assembly-line workers. [7]Also, think about the alternative possibility: If you
don’t like your job, does this mean that you will reduce your performance?
Maybe up to a certain point, but there will be factors that prevent you from
reducing your performance: such as the fear of getting fired, the desire to get
a promotion so that you can get out of the job that you dislike so much, or
your professional work ethic. As another example, among nurses, there seems to
be a weak correlation between satisfaction and performance. Even when they are
unhappy, nurses put a lot of effort into their work because they feel a moral
obligation to help their patients. As a result, we should not expect a
one-on-one relationship between satisfaction and performance. Still, the
observed correlation between work attitudes and performance is important and
has practical value.
Finally,
job performance has a modest relationship with personality traits,
particularly conscientiousness. People who are organized, reliable, dependable,
and achievement-oriented seem to outperform others in various contexts. [8]
Organizational Citizenship
Behaviors
While
job performance refers to the performance of duties listed in one’s job
description, organizational citizenship behaviors involve performing behaviors
that are more discretionary. Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are voluntary behaviors employees perform to help
others and benefit the organization. Helping a new coworker understand how
things work in this company, volunteering to organize the company picnic, and
providing suggestions to management about how to improve business processes are
some examples of citizenship behaviors. These behaviors contribute to the
smooth operation of business.
What are the major predictors of citizenship
behaviors? Unlike performance, citizenship behaviors do not depend so much on
one’s abilities. Job performance, to a large extent, depends on our general mental
abilities. When you add the education, skills, knowledge, and abilities that
are needed to perform well, the role of motivation on performance becomes more
limited. As a result, just because someone is motivated will not mean that the
person will perform well. For citizenship behaviors, in contrast, the
motivation-behavior link is clearer. We help others around us if we feel
motivated to do so, and managers, in the Leadership role, are responsible for
motivating employees.
Perhaps
the most important factor explaining our citizenship behaviors is organizational justice and interpersonal relationships. When we have a good relationship with our manager
and we are supported by our manager, when we are treated fairly, when we are
attached to our peers, when we trust the people around us, we are more likely
to engage in citizenship behaviors. A high-quality relationship with people we
work with will mean that simply doing our job will not be enough to maintain
the relationship. In a high-quality relationship, we feel the obligation to
reciprocate and go the extra mile to help them out. [9]
Our personality is
yet another explanation for why we perform citizenship behaviors. Personality
is a modest predictor of actual job performance but a much better predictor of
citizenship. People who are conscientious, agreeable, and low on Neuroticism
tend to perform citizenship behaviors more often than others. [10]
Job
attitudes are
also moderately related to citizenship behaviors—more so than they are to job
performance. People who are happier at work, those who are more committed to
their companies, and those who have overall positive attitudes toward their
work situation tend to perform citizenship behaviors more often than others.
When people are unhappy, they tend to be disengaged from their jobs and rarely
go beyond the minimum that is expected of them. [11]
Interestingly,
age seems to be related to the frequency with which we demonstrate citizenship
behaviors. People who are older are better citizens. It is possible that with
age we gain more experiences to share. It becomes easier to help others because
we have more accumulated company and life experiences to draw from. [12]
Absenteeism
Absenteeism
refers to Unscheduled absences from work. Such absences are costly to companies
because of their unpredictable nature, affecting a manager’s ability to Control
the firm’s or department’s budget. When an employee has an unscheduled absence
from work, companies struggle to find replacement workers at the last minute.
This may involve hiring contingent workers, having other employees work
overtime, or scrambling to cover for an absent coworker. The cost of absenteeism to
organizations is estimated at $74 billion. According to a Mercer Human Resource
consulting study, 15% of the money spent on payroll is related to absenteeism. [13]
What
causes absenteeism? First, we need to look at the type of absenteeism. Some
absenteeism is unavoidable and is related to health reasons.
For example, reasons such as acute or serious illness, lower back pain,
migraines, accidents one may have on or off the job, or acute stress are
important reasons for absenteeism. [14] Health-related absenteeism is costly, but it would be
unreasonable and unfair to institute organizational policies penalizing it.
When an employee has a contagious illness, showing up at work will infect
coworkers and will not be productive. If the illness is not contagious, it is
still in the organization’s best interest for the employee to receive proper
medical treatment and rest to promote a full recovery. Indeed, companies are
finding that programs aimed at keeping workers healthy are effective in dealing
with this type of absenteeism. Companies using wellness programs, educating
employees about proper nutrition, helping them exercise, and rewarding them for
healthy habits have reported reduced absenteeism. [15]
Absenteeism costs companies an estimated $74 billion annually. Companies using wellness programs targeting employee health are found to reduce absenteeism. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
Work/life
balance is
another common reason for absences. Staying home to care for a sick family
member, attending the wedding or funeral of a loved one, and skipping work to
study for an exam are all common reasons for unscheduled absences. Companies
may deal with these by giving employees more flexibility in work hours. If
employees can manage their own time, they are less likely to be absent.
Conversely, when a company has “sick leave” but no other leave for social and
family obligations, they may fake being sick and use their “sick leave.” One
solution is to have a single paid time off policy that would allow workers to
balance work and life and allow companies to avoid unscheduled absences.
Organizations such as Lahey Clinic at Burlington, Massachusetts, have found
this to be effective in dealing with unscheduled absences. Some companies such
as IBM got rid of sick leave altogether and instead allow employees to take as
much time off as they need, so long as the work gets done.[16]
Sometimes,
absenteeism is a form of work withdrawal and a step followed by turnover. In
other words, poor
work attitudes lead
to absenteeism. When employees are dissatisfied with their work or have low
organizational commitment, they are likely to be absent more often. Thus,
absenteeism is caused by the desire to avoid an unpleasant work environment. In
this case, management may deal with absenteeism by investigating the causes of
dissatisfaction and dealing with them.
Are
there personal factors contributing to absenteeism? Research does not reveal a
consistent link between personality and absenteeism, but there is one
demographic criterion that predicts absenteeism: age. Interestingly, and
against some stereotypes that increased age would bring more health problems,
research shows that age is negatively related to both frequency and duration of
absenteeism. That is, younger workers are the ones more likely to be absent.
Because of reasons that include higher loyalty to their company and a stronger
work ethic, older employees are less likely be absent from work. [17]
Turnover
Turnover
refers to an employee’s leaving an organization. Employee turnover has potentially harmful consequences, such as poor
customer service and poor company-wide performance. When employees leave, their
jobs still need to be performed by someone, so companies spend time recruiting,
hiring, and training new employees, all the while suffering from lower
productivity. Yet, not all turnover is bad. Turnover is particularly a problem
when high-performing employees leave, while a poor performer’s leaving may
actually give the company a chance to improve productivity and morale.
Why
do employees leave? An employee’s performance level is an important reason. People who perform
poorly are actually more likely to leave. These people may be fired, may be
encouraged to quit, or may quit because of their fear of being fired.
Particularly if a company has pay-for-performance systems, poor performers will
find that they are not earning much due to their below-standard performance.
This gives poor performers an extra incentive to leave. This does not mean that
high performers will definitely stay with a company. High performers may find
it easier to find alternative jobs, so when they are unhappy, they can leave
more quickly.
Work
attitudes are
often the primary culprit in why people leave. When workers are unhappy at
work, and when they do not feel committed to their companies, they are more
likely to leave. Loving the things you do, being happy with the opportunities
for advancement within the company, being happy about pay are all aspects of
our work attitudes relating to turnover. Of course, the link between work
attitudes and turnover is not direct. When employees are unhappy, they will
have the intention to leave and may start looking for a job. But their ability
to actually leave will depend on many factors, such as their employability and
the condition of the job market. For this reason, when national and regional
unemployment is high, many people who are unhappy will still continue to work
for their current company. When the economy is doing well, people will start
moving to other companies in response to being unhappy. Understanding the
connection between employee happiness and turnover, many companies make an
effort to make employees happy. SAS Institute employees have a 35-hour workweek
and enjoy amenities such as a swimming pool and child care at work. The
company’s turnover is around 4%–5%, in comparison to the industry averages
ranging from 12%–20%. [18]
People
are more likely to quit their jobs if they experience stress at
work as well. Stressors such as role conflict and role ambiguity drain energy
and motivate people to seek alternatives. For example, call center employees
experience a great deal of stress because of poor treatment from customers,
long work hours, and constant monitoring of their every action. Companies such
as EchoStar realize that one method that is effective in retaining their best
employees is to give them opportunities to move to higher-responsibility jobs
elsewhere in the company. When a stressful job is a step toward a more
desirable job, employees seem to stick around longer. [19]
There
are also individual differences in whether people leave or stay. For example, personality is
a factor in the decision to quit one’s job. People who are conscientious,
agreeable, and emotionally stable are less likely to quit their jobs. Many
explanations are possible. People with these personality traits may perform
better at work, which leads to lower quit rates. Or, they may have better
relations with coworkers and managers, which is a factor in their retention.
Whatever the reason, it seems that some people are likely to stay longer at any
given job regardless of the circumstances. [20]
Whether
we leave a job or stay also depends on our age and how long we have been there. It seems that younger employees are more likely to leave. This
is not surprising because people who are younger often have fewer
responsibilities such as supporting a household or having dependents. As a
result, they can quit a job they don’t like much more easily. They may also
have higher expectations and thus be more easily disappointed when a job proves
to be less rewarding than they had imagined. Similarly, people who have been
with a company for a short period of time can quit more easily. For example,
Sprint Nextel found that many of their new hires were likely to quit within 45
days of their hiring dates. When they investigated, they found that newly hired
employees were experiencing a lot of stress from avoidable problems such as
unclear job descriptions or problems with hooking up their computers. Sprint
was able to solve the turnover problem by paying special attention to orienting
new hires. New employees experience a lot of stress at work, and there is
usually not much keeping them in the company such as established bonds to a
manager or colleagues. New employees may even have ongoing job interviews with
other companies when they start working. This, too, gives them the flexibility
to leave more easily.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Employees demonstrate a wide
variety of positive and negative behaviors at work. Among these, four are
critically important and have been extensively studied in the OB literature.
Job performance is the degree of success with which one accomplishes the tasks
listed in one’s job description. A person’s abilities, particularly general
mental ability, are the main predictor of job performance in many occupations.
How we are treated at work, the level of stress experienced at work, work
attitudes, and, to a lesser extent, our personality are also factors relating
to one’s job performance. Citizenship behaviors are tasks helpful to the
organization that go above and beyond one’s job description. Performance of
citizenship behaviors are less a function of our abilities and more of
motivation. How we are treated at work, personality, work attitudes, and our
age are the main predictors of citizenship. Among negative behaviors employees
demonstrate, absenteeism and turnover are critically important. People who
experience health problems and work/life balance issues are prone to more
absenteeism. Poor work attitudes are also related to absenteeism, and younger
employees are more likely to be absent from work, especially when dissatisfied.
Turnover is higher among low performers, people who have negative work
attitudes, and those who experience a great deal of stress. Personality and
being younger are personal predictors of turnover.
EXERCISES
1.
What is the
difference between performance and organizational citizenship behaviors? As a
manager, how would you improve someone’s performance? How would you increase
citizenship behaviors?
2.
Are citizenship
behaviors always beneficial to the company? Can you think of any citizenship
behaviors employees may perform with the intention of helping a company but
that may have negative consequences overall?
3.
Given the
factors correlated with job performance, which employee selection methods
should be better at identifying future high performers?
4.
What are the
major causes of absenteeism at work? How can companies minimize the level of
absenteeism that takes place?
5.
In some
companies, managers are rewarded for minimizing the turnover within their
department or branch. A part of their bonus is directly tied to keeping the
level of turnover below a minimum. What do you think about the potential
effectiveness of these programs? Do you see any downsides to such programs?
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R. S. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational
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Lord, R. G. (2002). Examining the roles of job involvement and work centrality
in predicting organizational citizenship behaviors and job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 93–108; Fassina, N. E., Jones, D. A., & Uggerslev, K. L.
(2008). Relationship clean-up time: Using meta-analysis and path analysis to
clarify relationships among job satisfaction, perceived fairness, and
citizenship behaviors. Journal
of Management, 34, 161–188; Hoffman, B. J.,
Blair, C. A., Meriac, J. P., & Woehr, D. J. (2007). Expanding the criterion
domain? A quantitative review of the OCB literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 555–566; Lepine, J. A., Erez, A., & Johnson, D. E. (2002).
The nature and dimensionality of organizational citizenship behavior: A
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of Applied Psychology, 87,
52–65; Organ, D. W., & Ryan, K. (1995). A meta-analytic review of
attitudinal and dispositional predictors of organizational citizenship
behavior. Personnel
Psychology, 48, 775–802; Riketta, M. (2002).
Attitudinal organizational commitment and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 257–266; Riketta, M., & Van Dick, R. (2005). Foci of
attachment in organizations: A meta-analytic comparison of the strength and
correlates of workgroup versus organizational identification and commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 490–510.
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2.6 Developing Your Positive Attitude Skills
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Learn to be
happier at work.
2.
Leverage your
attitudes for optimum work performance.
Research shows that acting positive at work can actually help you become happier over time as emotions can be influenced by actions. © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation
Have
you ever wondered how you could be happier at work and how greater work
satisfaction could improve your overall effectiveness? Here are some ideas that
may help you achieve a great sense of peace for yourself as well as when you
are working with a negative coworker.
·
Leverage your Big Five traits.
Your personality is a big part of your happiness. Which of the Big Five
positive traits are you strongest on? Be aware of them and look for
opportunities to express them at work. Are you high on Neuroticism? If so, work
to overcome this challenge: If you choose to find the negative side of
everything, you will.
·
Find a job and company that fit
you well. Good
fit with the job and company are important to your happiness. This starts with
knowing yourself, your chosen career, and the particular job in question: What
do you want from the job? What do you enjoy doing?
·
Get accurate information about
the job and the company. Ask detailed questions about
what life is like in this company. Do your research. Read about the company;
use your social network to understand the company’s culture.
·
Develop good relationships at
work. Make friends. Try to get a mentor if your company does not
have a formal mentoring program. Approach a person you admire and attempt to
build a relationship with this person. An experienced mentor can be a great
help in navigating life at a company. Your social network can help you weather
the bad days and provide you with emotional and instrumental support during
your time at a company as well as afterward.
·
Pay is important, but job characteristics matter more
to your job satisfaction. So don’t sacrifice the job itself for a
bit more money. When choosing a job, look at the level of challenge and the
potential of the job to make you feel engaged.
·
Be proactive in managing
organizational life. If the job is stressful, cope with it by
effective time management and having a good social network, as well as being
proactive in getting to the source of stress. If you don’t have enough
direction, ask for it!
·
Know when to leave.
If the job makes you unhappy over an extended period of time and there is
little hope of solving the problems, it may be time to look elsewhere.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Promoting a positive work
attitude will increase your overall effectiveness as a manager. You can
increase your own happiness at work by knowing yourself as a person, by
ensuring that you work at a job and company where you fit in, and by building
effective work relationships with your manager, coworkers, and subordinates.
Concentrating on the motivating potential of the job when choosing a job and
solving the problems you encounter in a proactive manner may be helpful as
well.
EXERCISES
1.
Do you believe
that your own happiness at work is in your hands? What have you done in the
past to increase your own satisfaction with work?
2.
Consider the
most negative person you work or interact with. Why do you think they focus
more on the negative side of life?
3.
On the basis of
what you have read in this chapter, can you think of ways in which you can
improve your effectiveness in dealing with negative coworkers?