1. Stephen P. Robbins & Timothy A. Judge
Essentials of
Organizational Behavior, 11/e
Global Edition
Stephen P. Robbins & Timothy A. Judge
Chapter 4
Personality Traits and Work Values

2. After studying this chapter you should be able to:
Define personality, describe how it is measured, and explain the factors that determine an individual’s personality.
Describe the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality framework and assess its strengths and weaknesses.
Identify the key traits in the Big Five personality model and demonstrate how the traits predict behavior at work.
Identify other personality traits that are relevant to OB.
Define values, demonstrate the importance of values, and contrast terminal and instrumental values.
Identify Hofstede’s five value dimensions of national culture.

3. Personality
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others
Most often described in terms of measurable traits that a person exhibits, such as shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal and timid
The combination of psychological traits we use to classify & describe a person in terms of characteristics such as quiet, passive, loud, aggressive, etc.
Personality is often defined by characteristics such as outgoing or charming. However, psychologists define personality as the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
We study personality in Organizational Behavior because it impacts a number of important work outcomes. We can attempt to measure personality through a variety of methods. Often these methods are utilized in the hiring process to assist in hiring the right person for the job and the organization.

4. Measuring Personality
Self-reports Surveys
Most common
Prone to error
Observer-ratings Surveys
Independent assessment
May be more accurate
There are two main ways to measure personality -- self-reports or observer-ratings. Self-reports are the most common and easiest to administer, but they are prone to error due to the fact that the individual is reporting all the data about themselves.
Observer-ratings are when an independent person will observe and monitor behavior and record it in the survey. These reports tend to more accurate but difficult to administer and more costly.

5. Personality Determinants
Heredity is the most dominant factor
Twin studies: genetics more influential than parents
Environmental factors do have some influence
Aging influences levels of ability
Basic personality is constant
There are many determinants of personality including heredity, environmental factors and age.
There has been a long standing debate about whether genetics or environment are more important in determining personality. They both play an important role. The heredity approach refers to factors determined at conception such as physical stature and gender. This has been reaffirmed by studies that have looked at twins who were raised apart but still had similar personalities. However, there were differences observed leading to the idea the environmental factors can have some influence.
Age does influence the level of ability that an individual has even though it is widely held that the basic personality stays constant throughout the life of the individual.

6. Personality Traits LAZY RIGID ANGRY ACTIVE BRAVE RELAXED SHY
EASY GOING
TOUGH
OUTGOING
CREATIVE
CONFIDENT
Characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour, they are exhibited in a large number of situation

7. Measuring Personality Traits: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Most widely used personality-assessment instrument in the world
It is a 100 question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in a particular situation.
Individuals are classified as:
Extroverted or Introverted (E/I)
Sensing or Intuitive (S/N)
Thinking or Feeling (T/F)
Judging or Perceiving (J/P)
Classifications combined into 16 personality types (i.e. INTJ or ESTJ)
Unrelated to job performance
The MBTI is the most widely used personality instrument world-wide. Participants are classified within four scales to determine 1 of 16 possible personality types. These types are broken down into four dichotomies. The first is extroverts who tend to be sociable and assertive verses introverts who tend to be quiet and shy. The second dichotomy is sensing and intuitive. Sensors are practical and orderly where intuits utilize unconscious processes. The third dichotomy is thinking and feeling. Thinking focuses on using reason and logic where feeling utilizes values and emotions. The final dichotomy is judging and perceiving. Judgers want order and structure whereas perceivers are more flexible and spontaneous.
These categories, while insightful, are not related to job performance.

8. Measuring Personality Traits: The Big-Five Model
Five Traits:
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Openness to Experience
Strongly supported relationship to job performance (especially Conscientiousness)
The Big Five model of personality sets forth that there are five basic dimensions that underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variations in human personalities. The Big Five factors are: Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Openness to Experiences. There is a lot of research that supports the Big Five model and it has been shown to predict behavior at work.

9. Openness to experience
The Big Five Model 1 2 3
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Extroversion - one's comfort level with relationships; Agreeableness - refers to an individual's propensity to defer to others; Conscientiousness - a measure of reliability;
Emotional stability -taps a person's ability to withstand stress; Openness to experience - addresses an individual's range of interests and fascination with novelty 4 5
Emotional stability
Openness to experience

10. The Big Five Model & OB High relation with job performance
Conscientiousness leads to high level of job knowledge.
Extroverts are good sales persons.
High on agreeableness makes a person good team player.
People are good and quick learners if they are high on openness.

11. Other Personality Traits
Core Self-Evaluation: People with positive core self-evaluation like themselves and see themselves as capable and effective in the workplace.
Machiavellianism: “if it works use it”
High Machs tend to be pragmatic, emotionally distant and believe the ends justify the means.
Narcissism: A person with a grandiose view of self, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of self- entitlement and is arrogant.
There are additional personality traits relevant to organizational behavior.
Core self-evaluation is the degree to which people like/dislike themselves. Positive self-evaluation leads to higher job performance.
Machiavellianism describes a person who tends to be emotionally distant and believes that the ends justify the means. They tend to have a competitive drive and a need to win. They can be very persuasive in situations where they is direct interaction with minimal rules and people are distracted by emotions.
Narcissism is a trait that often hinders job effectiveness. It describes a person who requires excessive admiration and has a strong sense of entitlement.

12. Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB
Self-monitoring
Ability to adjust behavior to meet external, situational factors
Risk Taking
Willingness to take chances and accept risk
Decision making quick
Specific to jobs (stocks) (accounts)
Type A Personality
Competitive, urgent & driven
Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action and perseveres
Self-monitoring is another personality trait that is linked to job performance. It is the ability to adjust behavior to meet situational factors. High monitors are more likely to become leaders in the workplace.
Risk taking refers to the willingness of the individual to take chances. This quality affects how much time and information managers need to make a decision.
Type A personality refers to a person who tends to be aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more and in less time.
Proactive personality are people who are able to identify opportunities and take action to capitalize on that opportunity. They also have the ability to persevere through difficulties to meet their goals.

13. A & B Types of Personality
Type ‘A’
Always moving, walking & eating fast
Feel impatient
Strive to do two or more things at once
Cannot cope with leisure time
Obsessed with number; how many, how much they have achieved
Suffer high level of stress
Quantity over quality
Time pressure/deadlines
Rarely creative
Poor decision makers
Behavior is easier to predict
Type ‘B’
Never suffer from a sense of time urgency
Feel no need to display/discuss their achievements unless required
Play for fun /relaxation
Can relax without guilt
Difficult to predict behavior
Good decision makers
Quality of work
No compromise on health
Wiser than hasty
Creative / innovative solutions to same problem

15. Values
Represent basic, enduring convictions that "a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence."
Values represent basic convictions that make judgments about what is the best mode of conduct or end-state of existence.

16. Value Systems Represent a prioritizing of individual values by:
Content – importance to the individual
Intensity – relative importance with other values
The hierarchy tends to be relatively stable
Values are the foundation for attitudes, motivation, and behavior
Influence perception and cloud objectivity
Value systems represent individual values and prioritizes them based on how important the particular value is to the individual and how intense their feelings are about that particularly value. The way individuals set up their values in order of importance is relatively stable over time and set the foundation for many work outcomes such as attitudes, motivation and behavior. In addition, values are important in the workplace because they can influence an individual’s perception and cloud their objectivity.

17. Rokeach Value Survey
Terminal values refers to desirable end-states of existence
Goals that a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime
Instrumental values
refers to preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving the terminal values
-The Rokeach Value Survey was created by Milton Rokeach. It consists of two sets of values, terminal values and instrumental values. Terminal values describe the desired values/goals a person would like to keep/achieve through their lifetime. Instrumental values are the preferred modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values.
-Values vary between groups and can cause trouble when group members hold different values and negotiation is needed.

18. Examples of Terminal Values
A comfortable life (a prosperous life)
An exciting life (stimulating, active life)
A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution)
A world of peace (free of war and conflict)
A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts)
Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)
Family security (taking care of loved ones)
Freedom (independence, free choice)
Happiness (contentedness)
There are many terminal values and this list is not exhaustive, but it represents some of the more widely accepted values to which people adhere.

19. Examples of Instrumental Values
Ambitious (hard working, aspiring)
Broad-minded (open-minded)
Capable (competent, efficient)
Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)
Clean (neat, tidy)
Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)
Forgiving (willing to pardon others)
Helpful (working for the welfare of others)
Honest (sincere, truthful)
This list represents some examples of instrumental values and again, is not exhaustive, but should provide a look at some of the instrumental values people hold.

20. Personality-Job Fit: Holland’s Hexagon
Job satisfaction and turnover depend on congruency between personality and task
Fields adjacent are similar
Field opposite are dissimilar
Vocational Preference Inventory Questionnaire
-Personality and value studies are important to the field of organizational behavior because they have been linked to workplace outcomes. The person-job fit theory developed by John Holland has been critical to thinking about how people fit with a specific job. Holland classified people into six personality types utilizing a vocational preference inventory.
-Through the study of personality it has become clear that there are intrinsic differences in personality between people. Given that there are a number of different jobs it is logical that people in jobs congruent with their personalities would be more satisfied in their work.
-When the personality is matched with the type of occupation then there are stronger positive work outcomes.
Diagram of the Relationship among Occupational Personality Types

21. Matching Personalities and Jobs
Six-personality-types model - an employee’s satisfaction with and propensity to leave his or her job depend on the degree to which the individual’s personality matches his or her occupational environment

22. Personality Types and Sample Occupations

23. Person-Organization Fit
It is more important that employees’ personalities fit with the organizational culture than with the characteristics of any specific job.
The fit predicts job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover.
This idea can be further linked to the workplace by looking at person-organization fit. The employee’s personality needs to fit with the organizational culture. When employees find organizations that match their values they are more likely to be selected and correspondingly be more satisfied with their work. The big five personality types are often helpful in matching the individuals with organizational culture.

24. Global Implications
The Big Five Model appears across a wide variety of cultures
Primary differences based on factor emphasis and type of country
Values differ across cultures
Two frameworks for assessing culture:
Hofstede
GLOBE
There are global implications to personality and values in the workplace. Frameworks such as the big five is transferable across cultures, in fact it has been used worldwide. However, the applicability is higher in some cultures than others. Values, on the other hand, differ to a great degree across cultures.
Geert Hofstede developed a framework for assessing culture. He breaks up his framework of understanding into five value dimensions: power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term vs. short-term orientation.
The GLOBE, as discussed earlier, is also helpful in framing differences between cultures.

25. Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Five factors: Power Distance Individualism vs. Collectivism Masculinity vs. Femininity Uncertainty Avoidance Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation
Power distance is the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. Low-distance is when there is relatively equal power between those with status/wealth and those without. Higher distance is when there is a lot of unequal power distribution between groups.
The second component in Hofstede’s framework is individualism vs. collectivism. Individualism is the degree to which people prefer to act on their own rather than in a group. Collectivism is the idea that people operate within a social framework where they help others out and they expect help when they need it.
Hofstede offers a third component in his model that distinguishes between masculinity and femininity. Masculinity is the extent to which the culture prefers achievement, power and control vs characteristics that are more feminine in nature.
The fourth component is uncertainty avoidance. This is the extent to which a society is willing to live with uncertainty and ambiguity. High uncertainty avoidance cultures will try to avoid ambiguous situations as much as possible. Lower uncertainty avoidance cultures do not mind ambiguity.
The final component is time orientation. Long-term orientation societies will emphasize the future and what it takes to get to the future they desire, thrift and persistence. Short-term orientation societies will emphasize the here and now. Power distance is the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. Low-distance is when there is relatively equal power between those with status/wealth and those without. Higher distance is when there is a lot of unequal power distribution between groups.
The final component is time orientation. Long-term orientation societies will emphasize the future and what it takes to get to the future they desire, thrift and persistence. Short-term orientation societies will emphasize the here and now.

26. Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
4-26
Power distance is the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. Low-distance is when there is relatively equal power between those with status/wealth and those without. Higher distance is when there is a lot of unequal power distribution between groups.
The second component in Hofstede’s framework is individualism vs. collectivism. Individualism is the degree to which people prefer to act on their own rather than in a group. Collectivism is the idea that people operate within a social framework where they help others out and they expect help when they need it.
Hofstede offers a third component in his model that distinguishes between masculinity and femininity. Masculinity is the extent to which the culture prefers achievement, power and control vs characteristics that are more feminine in nature.
The fourth component is uncertainty avoidance. This is the extent to which a society is willing to live with uncertainty and ambiguity. High uncertainty avoidance cultures will try to avoid ambiguous situations as much as possible. Lower uncertainty avoidance cultures do not mind ambiguity.
The final component is time orientation. Long-term orientation societies will emphasize the future and what it takes to get to the future they desire, thrift and persistence. Short-term orientation societies will emphasize the here and now. 26

27. GLOBE* Framework for Assessing Cultures
Ongoing study with nine factors:
Assertiveness
Future orientation
Gender differentiation
Uncertainty avoidance
Power distance
Individualism/ collectivism
In-group collectivism
Performance orientation
Humane orientation
The GLOBE framework takes a look at nine dimensions of national culture. It is similar to Hofstede’s model but adds the humane and performance orientations. The humane orientation looks at how much society rewards people for being altruistic and kind where the performance orientation looks at how much society encourages and rewards good work.
*Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness

28. GLOBE* Framework for Assessing Cultures
4-28
Assertiveness. The extent to which people are encouraged to be tough, confrontational, assertive, and competitive.
Future Orientation. The extent to which future-oriented behaviors are encouraged and rewarded. (Equivalent to Hofstede’s long-term/short-term orientation.)
Gender Differentiation. The extent to which society maximizes gender differences. (Equivalent to Hofstede’s masculine/feminine.)
Uncertainty Avoidance. Reliance on social norms and procedures to remove uncertainty. (Equivalent to Hofstede’s dimension of the same name.)
Power Distance. The degree to which unequal power is acceptable. (Equivalent to Hofstede’s dimension of the same name.)
Individualism/Collectivism. The degree to which individuals are encouraged to be integrated into groups. (Equivalent to Hofstede’s dimension of the same name.)
In-Group Collectivism. Extent to which people take pride in membership in small groups (family, friends, and work organizations).
Performance Orientation. The degree to which group members are rewarded for performance improvement and excellence.
Humane Orientation. The degree individuals are rewarded for fair, generous, and altruistic behaviors.
The GLOBE framework takes a look at nine dimensions of national culture. It is similar to Hofstede’s model but adds the humane and performance orientations. The humane orientation looks at how much society rewards people for being altruistic and kind where the performance orientation looks at how much society encourages and rewards good work. 28

29. Implications for Managers
Personality:
Evaluate the job, group, and organization to determine the best fit
Big Five is best to use for selection
MBTI for development and training
Values:
Strongly influence attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions
Match the individual values to organizational culture
Personality and values are very important to the workplace and play a solid role in predicting behavior. There are some good frameworks and models that can aid us in applying these theories and assist managers in being better predictors of workplace behavior.

30. Keep in Mind… Personality Big Five Personality Traits Values
The sum total of ways in which individual reacts to, and interacts with others
Easily measured
Big Five Personality Traits
Related to many OB criteria
May be very useful in predicting behavior
Values
Vary between and within cultures
Keep in mind as a manager that personality impacts the way an individual interacts with others, and it is fairly easy to measure to gain insight into the worker.
The Big five personality traits are somewhat universal and are very useful in predicting behavior.
Values are important to understand as they influence how workers will behave as well. They, however, vary significantly across cultures so it is important to understand the culture in which you are in.

31. Summary
Defined personality, described how it is measured and explained the factors that determine an individual’s personality.
Described the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality framework and assessed its strengths and weaknesses.
Identified the key traits in the Big Five personality model and demonstrated how the traits are relevant to OB.
Identified other traits relevant to OB.
Defined values, demonstrated the importance of values, and contrasted terminal and instrumental values.
Identified Hofstede’s five value dimensions of national culture.

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