Ch02

Editor's Notes

• #4: The idea is that if we can figure out how to categorize behavioral tendencies and identify which tendencies people have, we will be able to more accurately predict how and why people behave as they do.
• #5: A person’s self-concept is greatly influenced by culture. Self-esteem is a belief about one’s own worth based on an overall self-evaluation. People high in self-esteem see themselves as capable, worthwhile, and acceptable; they tend to have few doubts about themselves. People who are low in self-esteem are full of self-doubt and are often afraid to act because of it. While OB research has shown that high self-esteem generally can boost performance and satisfaction outcomes, it can also have drawbacks. For example, when under pressure, people with high self-esteem may become boastful and act egotistically. They may also be overconfident at times and fail to obtain important information. Self-efficacy, sometimes called the “effectance motive,” is a more specific version of self-esteem. You could have high self-esteem and yet have a feeling of low self-efficacy about performing a certain task, such as public speaking.
• #6: Heredity sets the limits on the extent to which our personality characteristics can be developed; environment determines development within these limits. For instance, a person could be born with a tendency toward authoritarianism, and that tendency could be reinforced in an authoritarian work environment. These limits appear to vary from one characteristic to the next, and across all characteristics there is about a 50–50 heredity–environment split.
• #7: Are we the way we are because of heredity—that is, genetic endowment—or because of the environments in which we have been raised and live—cultural, social, situational?
• #8: Personality combines a set of physical and mental characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts, and feels. Attempts are made to measure personality with questionnaires and special tests. Frequently, personality can be inferred from behavior alone. Either way, personality is an important individual characteristic to understand. It helps us identify predictable interplays between people’s individual differences and their tendencies to behave in certain ways.
• #9: Standardized personality tests determine how positively or negatively an individual scores on each of these dimensions. For instance, a person scoring high on openness to experience tends to ask lots of questions and to think in new and unusual ways. You can consider a person’s individual personality profile across the five dimensions. In terms of job performance, research has shown that conscientiousness predicts job performance across five occupational groups of professions—engineers, police, managers, salespersons, and skilled and semiskilled employees. Predictability of the other dimensions depends on the occupational group. For instance, not surprisingly, extraversion predicts performance for sales and managerial positions.
• #11: An important social trait is problem-solving style. The problem-solving style, based on the work of Carl Jung, a noted psychologist, is one measure representing social traits. It reflects the way a person goes about gathering and evaluating information in solving problems and making decisions. Problem-solving styles are most frequently measured by the typically 100-item Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which asks individuals how they usually act or feel in specific situations. Firms such as Apple, AT&T, and Exxon, as well as hospitals, educational institutions, and military organizations, have used the Myers-Briggs for various aspects of management development.
• #12: Information gathering involves getting and organizing data for use. Styles of information gathering vary from sensation to intuitive. Sensation-type individuals prefer routine and order and emphasize well-defined details in gathering information; they would rather work with known facts than look for possibilities. By contrast, intuitive-type individuals prefer the “big picture.” They like solving new problems, dislike routine, and would rather look for possibilities than work with facts. Sensation-type individuals prefer routine and order and emphasize well-defined details in gathering information. Intuitive-type individuals like new problems and dislike routine. They are ‘big picture’ people.
• #13: Figure 2.1. When the two dimensions (information gathering and evaluation) are combined, four basic problem-solving styles result: sensation–feeling (SF), intuitive–feeling (IF), sensation–thinking (ST), and intuitive–thinking (IT), together with summary descriptions as shown in the figure.
• #14: The second component of problem solving, evaluation, involves making judgments about how to deal with information once it has been collected. Styles of information evaluation vary from an emphasis on feeling to an emphasis on thinking. Feeling-type individuals are oriented toward conformity and try to accommodate themselves to other people. They try to avoid problems that may result in disagreements. Thinking-type individuals use reason and intellect to deal with problems and downplay emotions.
• #15: Key traits are Locus of control, Proactive personality, Authoritarianism/Dogmatism, Machiavellianism and Self-monitoring.
• #16: People have personal conceptions about whether events are controlled primarily by themselves, which indicates an internal orientation, or by outside forces, such as their social and physical environment, which indicates an external orientation. Externals: more extraverted in their interpersonal relationships and more oriented toward the world around them. Internals: more introverted and oriented towards their own feelings and ideas.
• #17: In the ever more demanding world of work, many companies are seeking individuals with more proactive qualities—individuals who take initiative and engage in proactive problem solving. Research supports this, showing that proactive personality is positively related to job performance, creativity, leadership, and career success. Other studies have shown that proactive personality is related to team effectiveness and entrepreneurship. Moreover, when organizations try to make positive and innovative change, these changes have more positive effects for proactive individuals—they are more involved and more receptive to change. This research is showing that proactive personality is an important and desirable element in today’s work environment.
• #18: Authoritarians are concerned with toughness and power and oppose the use of subjective feelings. Superiors who possess traits of dogmatism tend to be rigid and closed. At the same time, dogmatic subordinates tend to want certainty imposed upon them.
• #20: Where the situation permits, a high Mach might be expected to do or say whatever it takes to get his or her way. In contrast, a low Mach will tend to be much more strongly guided by ethical considerations and will be less likely to lie or cheat or to get away with lying or cheating.
• #22: High self-monitors are sensitive to external cues and tend to behave differently in different situations. Like high Machs, high self-monitors can present a very different appearance from their true self. In contrast, low self-monitors, like their low-Mach counterparts, are not able to disguise their behaviors—“what you see is what you get.” There is also evidence that high self-monitors are closely attuned to the behavior of others and conform more readily than do low self-monitors. Thus, they appear flexible and may be especially good at responding to the kinds of situational contingencies emphasized throughout this book. For example, high self-monitors should be especially good at changing their leadership behavior to fit subordinates with more or less experience, tasks with more or less structure, and so on.
• #23: Type A orientation is characterized by impatience, desire for achievement, and perfectionism. Type B orientation is characterized as more easygoing and less competitive in relation to daily events.
• #24: Stress can be both positive and negative and is an important fact of life in our present work environment. Individual needs, capabilities, and personality strongly impact how constructively we deal with stress. Stress can reach a destructive state more quickly, for example, when experienced by highly emotional people or by those with low self-esteem. People who perceive a good fit between job requirements and personal skills seem to have a higher tolerance for stress than do those who feel less competent as a result of a person–job mismatch. This is a reason to be careful about making sure you are a good fit with your organization.
• #26: Without doubt, work can be stressful, and job demands can disrupt one’s work-life balance. Work stressors can arise from many sources – from excessively high or low task demands, role conflicts or ambiguities, poor interpersonal relations, or career progress that is either too slow or too fast.
• #27: A less obvious, though important, source of stress for people at work is the spillover effect that results when forces in their personal lives “spill over” to affect them at work. Since it is often difficult to completely separate work and network lives, life stressors can affect the way people feel and behave on their jobs as well as in their personal lives.
• #28: An outcome of extended distress is job burnout, which manifests as loss of interest in and satisfaction with a job due to stressful working conditions. A person who is “burned out” feels exhausted, emotionally and physically, and is less able to deal positively with work responsibilities and opportunities. More extreme reactions sometimes appear in news reports in the form of personal attacks and crimes at work known as “desk rage” and “workplace rage. Too much stress can overload and break down a person’s physical and mental systems, resulting in absenteeism, turnover, errors, accidents, dissatisfaction, reduced performance, unethical behavior, and even illness.
• #29: With rising awareness of stress in the workplace, interest is also growing in how to manage, or cope, with distress. Coping is a response or reaction to distress that has occurred or is threatened. It involves cognitive and behavioral efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by the stressful situation.
• #30: The concept of personal wellness recognizes individual responsibility to enhance and maintain wellness through a disciplined approach to physical and mental health. It requires attention to such factors as smoking, weight management, diet, alcohol use, and physical fitness. Organizations can benefit from commitments to support personal wellness.
• #32: Terminal values are the goals individuals would like to achieve during their lifetime. Instrumental values represent how a person might go about achieving important end states.
• #33: These four values have been shown to be especially important in the workplace; thus, the framework should be particularly relevant for studying values in OB.
• #34: Researchers have found greater follower satisfaction with the leader when there was congruence in terms of achievement, helping, honesty, and fairness values.
• #35: Recognition of competence and accomplishment Respect Personal choice and freedom Involvement at work Pride in one’s work Quality of life Financial security Self development Health and wellness
• #36: Geert Hofstede, a Dutch scholar and consultant, refers to culture as the “software of the mind,” making the analogy that the mind’s “hardware” is universal among human beings. But the software of culture takes many different forms. We are not born with a culture; we are born into a society that teaches us its culture. And because culture is shared among people, it helps to define the boundaries between different groups and affect how their members relate to one another.
• #37: When using the Hofstede framework, it is important to remember that the five dimensions are interrelated, not independent. National cultures may best be understood in terms of cluster maps or collages that combine multiple dimensions.
• #38: Figure 2.4 The figure shows a sample grouping of countries based on individualism–collectivism and power distance. Note that high power distance and collectivism are often found together, as are low power distance and individualism. Whereas high collectivism may lead us to expect a work team in Indonesia to operate by consensus, the high power distance may cause the consensus to be heavily influenced by the desires of a formal leader. A similar team operating in more individualist and low-power-distance Great Britain or America might make decisions with more open debate, including expressions of disagreement with a leader’s stated preferences.
• #39: Organizations have recognized the importance of embracing policies and practices to diversify their workforces because it helps enhance competitiveness, build talent, expand organizational capabilities, and enhance access to markets (i.e., diverse customer bases).
• #40: Research shows that organizational creativity and innovation is enhanced by heterogeneity. Think about it—if you need to be creative, do you turn to people who think like you or to people who can help you think differently?
• #42: Demographic characteristics may serve as the basis of stereotypes that obscure individual differences and prevent people from getting to know each others as individuals. Stereotypes may present an obstacle that prevents an accurate assessment their performance potential.
• #43: Title VII applies to employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. According to Title VII, equal employment opportunity cannot be denied any person because of his/her racial group or perceived racial group, his/her race-linked characteristics (e.g., hair texture, color, facial features), or because of his/her marriage to or association with someone of a particular race or color. It also prohibits employment decisions based on stereotypes and assumptions about abilities, traits, or the performance of individuals of certain racial groups. Organizations have acknowledged the social and business advantages that are gained with a diverse, multicultural workforce. Maintaining this diversity needed more than affirmative recruitment efforts. Policies and practices of inclusion were developed that offer equal opportunity for advancement to all levels of the organization.
• #44: Women leaders are beneficial because they encourage more women in the pipeline and act as role models and mentors for younger women. Moreover, the presence of women leaders sends important signals that an organization has a broader and deeper talent pool, is an “employer of choice,” and offers an inclusive workplace. Catalyst research finds that women consistently identify gender stereotypes as a significant barrier to advancement. They describe it as the “think-leader-think-male” mindset: the idea that men are largely seen as the leaders by default. Both men and women see women as better at stereotypically feminine “caretaking skills,” such as supporting and encouraging others, and men as better at stereotypically masculine “take charge” skills, such as influencing superiors and problem solving—characteristics previously shown to be essential to leadership.
• #45: A 2010 Harris poll shows that 78 percent of heterosexual adults in the United States agree that how an employee performs at his or her job should be the standard for judging an employee, not one’s sexual orientation, and 62 percent agree that all employees are entitled to equal benefits on the job, such as health insurance for partners or spouses. Many businesses are paying attention because statistics show that the gay market segment is one of the fastest growing segments in the United States. The buying power of the gay/lesbian market is set to exceed $835 billion by 2011.
• #46: Millennials can bring to the workplace is their appreciation for gender equality and sexual, cultural, and racial diversity—Millennials embrace these concepts more than any previous generation. Millennials also have an appreciation for community and collaboration. They can help create a more relaxed workplace that reduces some of the problems that come from too much focus on status and hierarchy. Boomers and Gen Xers bring a wealth of experience, dedication, and commitment that contribute to productivity, and a sense of professionalism that is benefiting their younger counterparts. Together, Millennials and Gen Xers may be able to satisfy the Gen X desire for work–life balance through greater demand for more flexible scheduling and virtual work.
• #47: Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal civil-rights statute that protect the rights of people with disabilities. The ADA has helped to generate a more inclusive climate in organizations. Universal design has resulted in greater access to buildings and work spaces.
• #48: Organizations may not intend to create discriminatory environments, but having only a few members of a group may evoke a strong out-group identity. This may make them feel uncomfortable and less a part of the organization.
• #49: Valuing diversity assumes that groups will retain their own characteristics and will shape the firm as well as be shaped by it.