1. Personality and Values
Chapter 4
Personality and Values

2. Learning Objectives
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.
Demonstrate how the Big Five traits predict behavior at work.
Identify other personality traits relevant to OB.
Define values, demonstrate their importance, and contrast terminal and instrumental values.
Compare generational differences in values, and identify the dominant values in today’s workforce.
Identify Hofstede’s five value dimensions of national culture.

3. Personality What is Personality?
The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment. “Gordon Allport”
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others, the measurable traits a person exhibits

4. Measuring Personality
Personality Tests
Helpful in hiring decisions
Self Report Surveys
Most common method
Observer Rating Surveys
Provide an independent assessment of personality – often better predictors

5. Personality Determinants
Heredity
Factors determined at conception: physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and bio-rhythms
“Heredity Approach” argues that genes are the source of personality
Twin studies: raised apart but very similar personalities
Parents don’t add much to personality development
There is some personality change over long time periods
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior
The more consistent the characteristic and the more frequently it occurs in diverse situations, the more important the trait

6. Personality The Myers – Briggs Indicator (MBTI)
A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types using 100 questions
Most widely-used instrument in the world
Extroverted (E) vs. Introverted (I)
Sensing (S) vs. Intuitive (N)
Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)
Each of the sixteen possible combinations has a name

7. Personality The Big Five Personality Model
A personality assessment model that taps five basic dimensions
Extraversion
+ + + Extraversion
Introversion - - -
The quality of being comfortable with relationships (Sociable, gregarious, and assertive)
Higher performance – Enhanced leadership – Higher job & life satisfaction

8. Personality The Big Five Personality Model
Agreeableness
+ + + High
Low - - -
The ability to get along with others (Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting)
Higher performance – Lower levels of deviant behavior
Conscientiousness
+ + + High
Low - - -
The number of goals on which a person focuses (Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized)
Higher performance – Enhanced leadership – Greater longevity

9. Personality The Big Five Personality Model
Emotional Stability
+ + + More
Less- - -
Less moodiness and insecurity (Calm, self-confident, secure under stress (positive), versus nervous, depressed, and insecure under stress (negative)
High job & life satisfaction – Lower stress level
Openness
+ + + More
Less - - -
The capacity to entertain new ideas and to change as a result of new information (Curious, imaginative, artistic, and sensitive)
Training performance – Enhanced leadership – More adaptable to change

10. Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
Core Self Evaluation
The degree to which people like or dislike themselves
higher job performance
Machiavellianism
A pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who believes that ends justify the means
win more often
Narcissism
An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who needs excessive admiration
Less effective in their jobs
Self Monitoring
The ability to adjust behavior to meet external, situational factors.
more likely to become leaders.
Risk Taking
The willingness to take chances.
make faster decisions with less information
Types A Personality
Aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more in less time
High performance
Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres to completion
Creates positive change in the environment 10

11. Values What is Values? Attributes of Values
Basic convictions on how to conduct yourself or how to live your life that is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence
Attributes of Values
Content Attribute
That the mode of conduct or end-state is importance
Intensity Attribute
Person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform a task

12. Tends to be relatively constant and consistent
Values
What is Value System?
A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s value in terms of their intensity
Tends to be relatively constant and consistent

13. What is the Importance of Values?
Provide understanding of the attitudes, motivation, and behaviors
Influence our perception of the world around us
Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”
Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are preferred over others

14. Terminal Versus Instrumental Values “Rokeach Value Survey”
Terminal Values
Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime
Instrumental Values
Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values

15. Approximate Current Age
Values
Generational Values
Cohort
Entered Workforce
Approximate Current Age
Dominant Work Values
Veterans
65+
Hard working, conservative, conforming; loyalty to the organization
Boomers
40-60s
Success, achievement, ambition, dislike of authority; loyalty to career
Xers
20-40s
Work/life balance, team-oriented, dislike of rules; loyalty to relationships
Nexters
2000-Present
Under 30
Confident, financial success, self-reliant but team-oriented; loyalty to both self and relationships

16. Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace
Personality - Job Fit Theory
A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover
John Holland’s Personality-Job Fit Theory
Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI)
Realistic
Social
Investigative
Enterprising
Artistic
Conventional
There appear to be intrinsic differences in personality between people.
There are different types of jobs.
People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more satisfied and have lower turnover.

17. Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace
Person – Organization Fit
The extent that employee’s personality must fit with the organizational culture.
People are attracted to organizations that match their values.
Those who match are most likely to be selected.
Mismatches will result in turnover.
Can use the Big Five personality types to match to the organizational culture.

18. Global Implications Personality Values
Do frameworks like Big Five transfer across cultures?
Yes, but the frequency of type in the culture may vary
Better in individualistic than collectivist cultures
Values
Values differ across cultures
Hofstede’s Framework for assessing culture – five value dimensions: Power distance - Individualism vs. Collectivism - Masculinity vs. Femininity - Uncertainty Avoidance - Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation

19. Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Power Distance
The extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally
Low Distance
High Distance
Relatively equal power between those with status / wealth and those without status / wealth
Extremely unequal power distribution between those with status / wealth and those without status / wealth

20. Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Individualism
Collectivism
The degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups
A tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them
Masculinity
Femininity
The extent to which the society values work roles of achievement, power, and control, and where assertiveness and materialism are also valued
The extent to which there is little differentiation between roles for men and women

21. Global Implications Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them
High Uncertainty Avoidance
Low Uncertainty Avoidance
Society does not like ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them
Society does not mind ambiguous situations and embraces them

22. Global Implications Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Long-term Orientation
Short-term Orientation
A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence
A national culture attribute that emphasizes the present and the here-and-now

23. GLOBE Framework for Assessing Cultures Performance Orientation
Global Implications
GLOBE Framework for Assessing Cultures
Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program (Nine dimensions of national culture)
Humane Orientation
Performance Orientation
How much society rewards people for being altruistic, generous, and kind
How much society encourages and rewards performance improvement and excellence