grades.sav.savINTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AN.docx

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INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND
APPLYING OB Demographics are a key input that affects
important OB processes, most particularly perceptions, which in
turn affect the individual-level outcome of well-
being/flourishing and the organizational outcomes of being an
employer of choice and corporate reputation. Page 111 winning
at work PERCEPTION PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN GETTING A
JOB A recent survey of 400 humanresource professionals
uncovered results that are important to college graduates
looking for a job. The overwhelming conclusion? That “entry-
level workers are an entitled, unprofessional bunch.” About 45
percent of the HR professionals believed that the work ethic of
new college graduates had slipped in the past five years.1 Let’s
consider how you can avoid being perceived so negatively.
IMPRESSIONS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA The Internet is a gold
mine of information for recruiters, and some of it creates a bad
impression. Photos of drunken behavior, or rants with foul
language or that “bash” your employer, won’t improve a
recruiter’s perception. You need to be careful about your online
presence because approximately 20 percent of all organizations
browse sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to
help screen employees. Consider the experience of Pete Maulik,
chief strategy officer at Fahrenheit 212. Maulik was ready to
make an offer to an applicant, but first decided to check out the
man’s LinkedIn profile—and decided that the applicant was not
a team player. “He took credit for everything short of splitting
the atom,” Mr. Maulik said. “Everything was ‘I did this.’ He
seemed like a lone wolf. He did everything himself.” Maulik
recalls another good applicant who used his Twitter account “to

disparage just about every new innovation in the marketplace.”
Maulik concluded that the applicant “was much more
comfortable as the critic than the collaborative creator.”2 This
candidate was not hired either. IMPRESSIONS FROM YOUR
RÉSUMÉ Typos, gaps in employment, and too much work
history can leave negative impressions. Career coach Cheryl
Palmer notes that using your employer’s e-mail sends the
message to potential employers “that the job seekers will not
hesitate to use their equipment for personal use.”3
RECOMMENDED TIPS The following suggestions can help you
manage the impression you are sending when applying for a job.
Do’s •Adjust your Facebook privacy settings so potential
employers can’t see your party photos. •Use Twitter and
LinkedIn to play up your professional interests (like posting
relevant news articles). •Cross-check your résumé and LinkedIn
profile to make sure there aren’t discrepancies. Don’ts •Don’t
badmouth a current or former employer, colleague, or company.
•Avoid using foul language and making negative remarks.
•Don’t post anything that might be perceived as racist, biased,
or illegal.4 Note: We cover impression management in more
depth in Chapter 12. FOR YOUWHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS
CHAPTER We want to help you enhance your understanding of
the perceptual process so you won’t fall victim to common
perceptual errors. We especially want to show you how
perception influences the manner in which managers manage
diversity. We discuss two of the outcomes of this perceptual
process: stereotypes and causal attributions. Diversity should
matter to you because how a business deals with diversity
affects how you are perceived as an individual. Diversity should
matter to the organization because it means taking advantage of
the fullest range of human skill and talent. And we discuss
barriers and challenges to managing diversity, and the practices
organizations use to do so. Page 112 4.1A SOCIAL
INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL OF PERCEPTION
MAJOR QUESTION How does the perception process affect the
quality of my decisions and interpersonal relationships? THE

BIGGER PICTURE Understanding the mechanics of how you
process information will help you see how perception can
impact a variety of important processes and outcomes in OB, as
indicated in the Integrative Framework. You’re driving on a
winding mountain road at dusk and suddenly you see something
in the road. Is the object an animal, a rock, or a person? Should
you stop, or just maneuver around it? Or you’re in a team
meeting and one of your teammates makes a negative statement
about your work. Is the person being political or just having a
bad day? Your mind is quickly trying to answer these questions
before you make a response. Perception is key to resolving the
above situations. Perception is a cognitive process that enables
us to interpret and understand our surroundings. Recognition of
objects is one of this process’s major functions. For example,
both people and animals recognize familiar objects in their
environments. You would recognize that the object in the road
was a deer; dogs and cats can recognize their food dishes.
People must recognize objects to meaningfully interact with
their environment. But since organizational behavior’s (OB’s)
principal focus is on people, the following discussion
emphasizes social perception rather than object perception. (See
the Example box on the perception of apologies in business.)
EXAMPLEHow Perception of Apologies Differs in the United
States and Japan The frequency and meaning of apologies like
“I’m sorry” vary around the world, particularly between
Americans and Japanese. A recent study revealed that US
students apologized 4.51 times a week while Japanese students
used some type of apology 11.05 times a week. The findings
highlight the importance of social perception. WHAT DOES AN
APOLOGY MEAN?“Americans see an apology as an admission
of wrongdoing, whereas Japanese see it as an expression of
eagerness to repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability
necessarily implied.” American students thus are less likely to
apologize because they view it as an admission of guilt. This is
consistent with the “psychological tendency among Westerners
to attribute events to individuals’ actions.”5 In contrast,

Japanese students apologized even when they were not
responsible. This is partly due to the fact that Asian countries
possess more collective or group-oriented values that focus on
doing things for the greater good over self-interests. NEVER
APOLOGIZE AND NEVER EXPLAINAn old John Ford film,
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, followed a cavalry brigade in the
1800s posted in the Indian Territory; it popularized a strand of
American individualism in a phrase you may still hear today.
John Wayne’s character says, “Never apologize and never
explain. It’s a sign of weakness.” But apologies do have a role
in American business. THE BUSINESS IMPACT OF
APOLOGIESApologizing can right legitimate wrongs, and it
can save money for organizations. A study of medical
malpractice suits revealed that 16 percent would not have sued
had the hospital offered an apology. The University of Michigan
Medical Center put these results to practice and “adopted a
policy of ‘full disclosure for medical errors,’ including an
apology; its rate of lawsuits has since dropped 65 percent.”6
Page 113 “Apologizing by admitting a mistake—to co-workers,
employees, customers, clients, the public at large—tends to gain
credibility and generate confidence in one’s leadership,” says
Linda Stamato, of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict
Resolution. She cites the apology by David Neeleman, chairman
of Jet Blue, attempting to restore consumer trust, in his letter of
apology to those ill-served by the air carrier during the havoc of
winter storms in 2006. Although business leaders feel
ambivalent about apologizing, Stamato says, “Taking
responsibility for an error earns the privilege of being forgiven,
and thus granted a second chance. Employees may well be
relieved—after all, who has not made a mistake?—and more
willing to help make the corrective action work better.”7 YOUR
THOUGHTS? 1.Do you think it pays to apologize even if you
did not do something wrong? Explain. 2.What is your opinion
about hospitals apologizing for medical errors? 3.What are some
right ways and wrong ways to apologize in business settings?
Perception is an important process in the Integrative Framework

for Understanding and Applying OB because it affects our
actions and decisions. For example, The Wall Street Journal
reported on a recent study that suggested “men with shaved
heads are perceived to be more masculine, dominant and, in
some cases, to have greater leadership potential than those with
longer locks or with thinning hair.”8 Clearly, it is foolish to
make hiring decisions based on the amount of hair on someone’s
head. But if you know the perceptual error, you can avoid it!
You can learn to avoid perceptual errors by understanding the
process that guides perception. Figure 4.1 illustrates four stages
of perception. Three of the stages—selective
attention/comprehension, encoding and simplification, and
storage and retention—describe how specific social information
is observed and stored in memory. The fourth and final stage,
retrieval and response, involves turning mental representations
into real-world judgments and decisions. We’ll look at the four
stages of social perception by following a simple everyday
example. Suppose you were thinking of taking a course in, say,
personal finance. Three professors teach the same course, using
different types of instruction and testing procedures. Through
personal experience, you now prefer good professors who rely
on the case method of instruction and essay tests. According to
social perception theory, you would likely arrive at a decision
regarding which course to take based on the instructor,
following the steps outlined in the following sections. Stage 1:
Selective Attention/Comprehension People are constantly
bombarded by physical and social stimuli in the environment.
To avoid being overwhelmed, they selectively perceive subsets
of environmental stimuli. This is where attention plays a role.
Attention is the process of becoming consciously aware of
something or someone. The object of attention can come from
the environment or from memory. Research has shown that
people tend to pay attention to salient stimuli. FIGURE
4.1SOCIAL PERCEPTION: A SOCIAL INFORMATION
PROCESSING MODEL SOURCE: From R. Kreitner and A.
Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, 10th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2013,

p. 181. Reprinted with permission of McGraw-Hill Education.
Page 114 Salient StimuliSomething is salient when it stands out
from its context. A 250-pound man would certainly be salient in
a women’s aerobics class but not at a meeting of the National
Football League Players’ Association. One’s needs and goals
often dictate which stimuli are salient. For a driver whose gas
gauge shows empty, an Exxon or Shell sign is more salient than
a McDonald’s or Burger King sign. Moreover, research shows
that people tend to find negative information more salient than
positive information. This leads to a negativity bias.9 This bias
helps explain the gawking factor that slows traffic to a crawl
following a car accident, and it can affect employee behavior at
work. Our ExampleYou begin your search for the “right”
personal finance professor by asking friends who have taken
classes from the three available professors. You also may
interview the various professors who teach the class to gather
still more relevant information. In Figure 4.1, all the
information you obtain shows as competing environmental
stimuli labeled A through F. You interpret and categorize your
notes. Stage 2: Encoding and Simplification Memory does not
store observed information in its original form; encoding is
required. Our brains interpret or translate raw information into
mental representations. To accomplish this, perceivers assign
pieces of information to cognitive categories. “By category we
mean a number of objects that are considered equivalent.
Categories are generally designated by names, e.g., dog,
animal.”10 Imagine the memory this individual has for
parachuting off a mountain. He probably remembers the day, the
weather, and the thrill of it all. Details from highly salient
events like this are more likely to be remembered. Do you have
any desire to engage in this activity? We don’t! In social
information processing theory, a particular category builds on a
schema. A schema represents a person’s mental picture or
summary of a particular event or type of stimulus. For example,
picture a sports car. Does the picture show a smaller vehicle
with two doors? Is it red? If you answered yes, you would tend

to classify all small, two-door, fire-engine-red vehicles as
sports cars because this type of car possesses characteristics
that are consistent with your sports car schema. We interpret
and evaluate people, events, and objects by comparing their
characteristics with information contained in schemata (the
plural of schema). EncodingWe use encoding to interpret and
evaluate our environment, using schemata and cognitive
categories. We also use encoding and schemata to help us
organize and remember information. SimplificationRelying on
encoding helps us to simplify what might be a bewildering
range of inputs. Encoding and schemata make the world more
manageable. Our ExampleLet’s say you simplify by focusing on
categories most salient to you: the method of instruction, testing
procedures, and past grade distributions. Figure 4.1 shows these
three salient pieces of information as lines A, C, and F. Having
collected relevant information about the three personal finance
professors and their approaches, you compare this information
with other details contained in schemata. This comparison leads
you to form an impression of what each professor’s course
might be like. In turn, the relevant information (lines A, C, and
F in Figure 4.1) are passed along to the third stage. Stage 3:
Storage and Retention Page 115 Long-term memory is like an
apartment complex consisting of separate units connected to
common areas. The different people in each apartment will
sometimes interact. In addition, large apartment complexes have
different wings, separately identifiable but connected. Long-
term memory similarly consists of separate but related
categories. Specifically, long-term memory comprises three
compartments (or wings), one each for events, semantic
materials, and people.11 Event MemoryThis compartment
includes categories with information about both specific events
(relying on unique details) and general events (relying on
schemata). These memories describe appropriate sequences of
events in well-known situations, such as going to a restaurant,
going on a job interview, going to a food store, or going to a
movie. Semantic MemorySemantic memory refers to general

knowledge about the world, as a kind of mental dictionary of
concepts. Each concept includes a definition (e.g., a good
leader) and associated traits (outgoing), emotional states
(happy), physical characteristics (tall), and behaviors (works
hard). Concepts in semantic memory are stored as schemata;
such schemata are often subject to cultural differences. Person
MemoryCategories within this compartment supply information
about a single individual (your professor) or groups of people
(professors). You are more likely to remember information
about a person, an event, or an advertisement if it contains
characteristics that are similar to something stored in the
compartments of memory. Our ExampleAs the time draws near
for you to decide which personal finance professor to choose,
your schemata of them are stored in the three categories of
long-term memory. These schemata are available for immediate
retrieval and comparison. Stage 4: Retrieval and Response
People retrieve information from memory when they make
judgments and decisions. How Judgments ComeUltimately
judgments and decisions come about in one of two ways. Either
we draw on, interpret, and integrate categorical information
stored in long-term memory or we retrieve a summary judgment
that was already made. Do you think that this woman may have
any implicit cognitions that are affecting her dinner selection?
Because she is drinking white wine, maybe this choice already
activated a preference for fish or chicken. Do implicit
cognitions affect your choices when dining out? Our
ExampleOn registration day you have to choose which professor
to take for personal finance. After retrieving your schemata-
based impressions from memory, you select a good professor
who uses the case method and gives essay tests (line C in Figure
4.1). In contrast, you may choose your preferred professor by
simply recalling the decision you made two weeks ago.
Managerial Implications Social cognition is the window through
which we all observe, interpret, and prepare our responses to
people and events. A wide variety of managerial activities,
organizational processes, and quality-of-life issues are thus

affected by perception. We’ll touch on hiring, performance
appraisal, and leadership. HiringInterviewers make hiring
decisions based on their impression of how an applicant fits the
perceived requirements of a job. Unfortunately, many of these
decisions are made on the basis of implicit cognition. Implicit
cognition represents any thoughts or beliefs that are
automatically activated from memory without our conscious
awareness. The existence of implicit cognition leads people to
make biased decisions without an understanding that it is
occurring.12 A recent study in the Netherlands demonstrated
that the odds of being rejected for job openings were four times
larger for Arabs than for Dutch applicants: The applicants were
equally qualified.13 Experts recommend two solutions for
reducing the biasing effect of implicit cognition. First,
managers can be trained to understand and reduce this type of
hidden bias. Second, bias can be reduced by using structured as
opposed to unstructured interviews, and by relying on
evaluations from multiple interviewers rather than just one or
two people. More and more companies are using virtual
interviews as a tool for reducing problems associated with
implicit cognition (see the Example box below). Page 116
EXAMPLEVirtual Interviews Can Improve the Accuracy of Job
Interviews and Reduce Costs A survey of managers from 500
companies revealed that 42 percent were using web-based video
interviews as one component of the hiring process. Ocean
Spray, a juice company in Massachusetts, is a good example.
The company sends applicants an e-mail link that contains
preset interview questions. The answers are recorded via
webcam. BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL
INTERVIEWSStandardization drives several benefits of virtual
interviews. Consistency. Video-enabled interviews standardize
the process, which in turn leads to more reliable evaluations.
For example, Walmart uses video interviews to help select
pharmacists. Walmart recruiters believe that these interviews
provide them with a better idea of how people will interact with
customers. T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant similarly uses video

interviews to select restaurant managers for the same reason.
Collaboration. Experts suggest that “recruiters use recorded or
live video interviews to foster collaboration around hiring
decisions. With more stakeholders participating—by logging on
to live interviews from multiple locations or leaving comments
for colleagues to read on recorded interviews—more input leads
to better candidate selection.” Saving Time and Money. Ocean
Spray was experiencing an average cost of $1,000 per candidate
for an in-person interview. Martin Mitchell, the company’s
manager of talent and diversity, said that “video interviews
eliminated these costs” and they allowed the company to
interview people more quickly while not forcing applicants to
take time off work to travel for an interview.14 YOUR
THOUGHTS? 1.The discussion you just read focuses on the
positive aspects of this approach; what are the negative aspects
of using video interviews? 2.How might you prepare for a video
interview? 3.If you were relying on the videos to select
candidates for a job, what would you look for? Performance
AppraisalFaulty schemata about good versus poor performance
can lead to inaccurate performance appraisals, which erode
morale. A study of 166 production employees indicated that
they trusted management more when they perceived that their
performance appraisals were accurate.15 Therefore, managers
must accurately identify and communicate the behavioral
characteristics and results they look for in good performance at
the beginning of a review cycle. Furthermore, because memory
for specific instances of employee performance deteriorates
over time, managers need a mechanism for accurately recalling
employee behavior. Research shows that individuals can be
trained to more accurately rate performance.16 (See Chapter 6
for techniques to overcome common perception errors in the
performance appraisal.) LeadershipResearch demonstrates that
employees’ evaluations of leader effectiveness are influenced
strongly by their schemata of good and poor leaders. For
example, a team of researchers found that in the employees’
schema, good leaders would exhibit these behaviors:

1.Assigning specific tasks to group members. 2.Telling others
that they had done well. 3.Setting specific goals for the group.
4.Letting other group members make decisions. 5.Trying to get
the group to work as a team. 6.Maintaining definite standards of
performance.17 Page 117 4.2STEREOTYPES MAJOR
QUESTION How can I use knowledge of stereotypes to make
better decisions and manage more effectively? THE BIGGER
PICTURE Don’t say you don’t stereotype; that’s how we
humans think. Stereotypes help us process information faster. If
you didn’t rely on stereotypes, the world would seem chaotic.
But stereotypes can also lead to bad decisions and undermine
personal relationships. Understanding stereotypes can save you
from such pitfalls. Stereotypes represent a key component of the
perception process because they are used during encoding. “A
stereotype is an individual’s set of beliefs about the
characteristics or attributes of a group.”18 Stereotypes are not
always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good
at math is certainly part of a stereotype. Stereotypes may or
may not be accurate. Engineers may in fact be better at math
than the general population. Unfortunately, stereotypes can lead
to poor decisions. Specifically they can create barriers for
women, older individuals, people of color, and people with
disabilities, all while undermining loyalty and job satisfaction.
Examples follow. Gender. A summary of research revealed that:
•People often prefer male bosses. •Women have a harder time
being perceived as an effective leader. (The exception: Women
were seen as more effective than men only when the
organization faced a crisis and needed a turnaround.) •Women
of color are more negatively affected by sex-role stereotypes
than white women or men in general.19 Race. Studies of race-
based stereotypes also demonstrated that people of color
experienced more perceived discrimination, more racism-related
stress, and less psychological support than whites.20 Age.
Another example of an inaccurate stereotype is the belief that
older workers are less motivated, more resistant to change, less
trusting, less healthy, and more likely to have problems with

work–life balance. A recent study refuted all of these negative
beliefs about age.21 Stereotype Formation and Maintenance
Stereotyping is based on the following four-step process:
1.Categorization. We categorize people into groups according to
criteria (such as gender, age, race, and occupation).
2.Inferences. Next, we infer that all people within a particular
category possess the same traits or characteristics: women are
nurturing, older people have more job-related accidents, African
Americans are good athletes, and professors are absentminded.
Page 118 3.Expectations. We form expectations of others and
interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes.
4.Maintenance. We maintain stereotypes by: •Overestimating
the frequency of stereotypic behaviors exhibited by others.
•Incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors.
•Differentiating minority individuals from ourselves. Research
shows that it takes accurate information and motivation to
reduce the use of stereotypes.22 Managerial Challenges and
Recommendations The key managerial challenge is to reduce
the extent to which stereotypes influence decision making and
interpersonal processes throughout the organization. We suggest
three ways that this can be achieved. 1.Managers should educate
people about stereotypes and how they can influence our
behavior and decision making. We suspect that many people do
not understand how stereotypes unconsciously affect the
perception process. 2.Managers should create opportunities for
diverse employees to meet and work together in cooperative
groups of equal status. Social scientists believe that “quality”
interpersonal contact among mixed groups is the best way to
reduce stereotypes because it provides people with more
accurate data about the characteristics of other groups of
people. 3.Managers should encourage all employees to strive to
increase their awareness regarding stereotypes. Awareness helps
reduce the application of stereotypes when making decisions
and when interacting with others. What stands out in this photo?
Did you notice the man working from a wheelchair? Do you
think some people have negative stereotypes about people with

disabilities? Research shows that there is a tendency to have
such stereotypes. Page 119 4.3CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS
MAJOR QUESTION How do I tend to interpret employee
performance? THE BIGGER PICTURE Consciously or
unconsciously, you use causal attributions when you seek to
explain the causes of behavior. So do most managers. You can
avoid the fundamental attribution bias and self-serving bias if
you learn how they distort our interpretation of observed
behavior. Attribution theory is based on a simple premise:
People infer causes for observed behavior. Rightly or wrongly,
we constantly formulate cause-and-effect explanations for how
we and others behave. Formally defined, causal attributions are
suspected or inferred causes of behavior. Managers need to
understand how people formulate these attributions because the
attributions profoundly affect organizational behavior. Consider
the table below, in which how the manager understands the
observed behavior drives him to take very different actions.
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR MANAGER’S ATTRIBUTION
MANAGERIAL ACTION Fails to meet minimum standards
Lack of effort Reprimand Fails to meet minimum standards
Lack of ability Training Kelley’s Model of Attribution
Current models of attribution build on the pioneering work of
the late Fritz Heider. Heider, the founder of attribution theory,
who proposed that behavior can be attributed either to internal
factors within a person (such as ability) or to external factors
within the environment (such as a difficult task). Following
Heider’s work, Harold Kelley attempted to pinpoint specific
antecedents of internal and external attributions. Kelley
hypothesized that people make causal attributions by observing
three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and
consistency.23 These dimensions vary independently, forming
various combinations and leading to differing attributions.
•Consensus compares an individual’s behavior with that of his
or her peers. There is high consensus when one acts like the rest
of the group and low consensus when one acts differently.
•Distinctiveness compares a person’s behavior on one task with

his or her behavior on other tasks. High distinctiveness means
the individual has performed the task in question in a
significantly different manner than he or she has performed
other tasks. •Consistency judges if the individual’s performance
on a given task is consistent over time. Low consistency is
undesirable for obvious reasons, and implies that a person is
unable to perform a certain task at some standard level. High
consistency implies that a person performs a certain task the
same way, with little or no variation over time. Page 120
FIGURE 4.2SAMPLE CHARTS OF CONSENSUS,
DISTINCTIVENESS, AND CONSISTENCY IN
PERFORMANCE SOURCE: From K. A. Brown, “Explaining
Group Poor Performance: An Attributional Analysis,” Academy
of Management Review, January 1984, p. 56. Copyright © 2001
by Academy of Management. Reprinted with permission of
Academy of Management, via Copyright Clearance Center.
Figure 4.2 provides sample charts of these dimensions in both
low and high incidence. So how do these three dimensions of
behavior lead to specific attributions? Kelley theorized that
people attribute behavior to either internal causes (personal
factors) or external causes (environmental factors) depending on
the ranking of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency as
shown: While other combinations are possible, the two
options shown above have been most frequently studied. Note:
For another view of Kelley’s theory, return to Figure 4.2. In the
figure, we provided charts that, taken together, indicate Internal
Attributions on the left-hand side and External Attributions on
the right-hand side. Page 121 TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—
TAAP 1.Think of someone who recently disappointed you. It
could be work-related (e.g., a peer did not complete part of a
group assignment) or personal (e.g., a friend failed to remember
your birthday). 2.Use Kelley’s model to identify whether the
unexpected behavior was due to internal or external causes.
3.Based on this attribution, what should you say or do to ensure
that this type of behavior does not happen again? Attributional
Tendencies Researchers have uncovered two attributional

tendencies that distort one’s interpretation of observed
behavior—fundamental attribution bias and self-serving bias.
Fundamental Attribution BiasThe fundamental attribution bias
reflects one’s tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to
his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational
factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important
environmental factors (again refer to the Integrative
Framework) that often significantly affect behavior. This leads
to inaccurate assessments of performance, which in turn foster
inappropriate responses to poor performance. Self-Serving
BiasThe self-serving bias represents one’s tendency to take
more personal responsibility for success than for failure. The
self-serving bias suggests employees will attribute their success
to internal factors (high ability or hard work) and their failures
to uncontrollable external factors (tough job, bad luck,
unproductive coworkers, or an unsympathetic boss). This
tendency plays out in all aspects of life. Managerial Application
and Implications Attribution models can explain how managers
handle poorly performing employees. One study revealed that
managers gave employees more immediate, frequent, and
negative feedback when they attributed their performance to low
effort. Another study indicates that managers tended to transfer
employees whose poor performance was attributed to a lack of
ability. These same managers also decided to take no immediate
action when poor performance was attributed to external factors
beyond an individual’s control.24 The preceding observations
offer useful lessons for all of us: •We tend to disproportionately
attribute behavior to internal causes. This can result in
inaccurate evaluations of performance, leading to reduced
employee motivation. The Integrative Framework for
Understanding and Applying OB offers a simple solution for
overcoming this tendency. You must remind yourself that
behavior and performance are functions of both person factors
and environmental characteristics. •Other attributional biases
may lead managers to take inappropriate actions. Such actions
could include promotions, transfers, layoffs, and so forth. This

can dampen motivation and performance. •An employee’s
attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic
effects on subsequent motivation, performance, and personal
attitudes such as self-esteem. For instance, people tend to give
up, develop lower expectations for future success, and
experience decreased self-esteem when they attribute failure to
a lack of ability. Employees are more likely to display high
performance and job satisfaction when they attribute success to
internal factors such as ability and effort.25 Page 122
4.4DEFINING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY MAJOR
QUESTION How does awareness about the layers of diversity
help organizations effectively manage diversity? THE BIGGER
PICTURE Like seashells on a beach, people come in a variety
of shapes, sizes, and colors. The global nature of your life
requires you to interact with various and diverse people. It is
important to be aware of the different layers of diversity and to
know the difference between affirmative action and managing
diversity. Do you have any preconceived notions regarding
diversity that are worth considering? Let’s take a reality check:
•Assumption: Gender diversity on boards of directors does not
impact firm performance. Wrong, says a study by the Credit
Suisse Research Institute. Results from a study of 2,400
companies from 2005 to 2012 showed that “companies with at
least one woman on the board would have outperformed stocks
with no women on the board by 26 percent over the course of
the last 6 years.”26 •Assumption: Organizations are having a
hard time finding qualified employees during the recessionary
period 2012–2013. Yes, according to a study of 3,400 HR
professionals. Two-thirds of the respondents said they had a
hard time filling specific job openings; the most difficult jobs to
fill included scientists, engineers, technicians and programmers,
nurses, doctors, and executives; the biggest skill gaps involved
critical thinking, problem solving, written communications,
work ethic, and leadership.27 •Assumption: Whites will
constitute the majority among US racial groups through 2050.
No, according to the Census Bureau. Today, whites represent 63

percent of the population and this will drop below 50 percent in
2043.28 The United States is becoming more diverse in its
gender, racial, educational, and age makeup—more working
parents, more nonwhite, older, and so on—and the consequences
are not always what you might expect. Demographics are the
statistical measurements of populations and their qualities (such
as age, race, gender, or income) over time. The study of
demographics helps us to better appreciate diversity and helps
managers to develop human resource policies and practices that
attract, retain, and develop qualified employees. In the
remainder of this chapter we hope to further your understanding
of diversity and its managerial challenges. Layers of Diversity
Diversity represents the multitude of individual differences and
similarities that exist among people, making it an input in the
Integrative Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. As
you will learn, however, managing diversity impacts a variety
of processes and outcomes within the Integrative Framework.
This is why the topic is so important to managers. Moreover,
diversity pertains to everybody. It is not an issue of age, race,
or gender; of being heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; or of being
Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or Muslim. Diversity pertains to
the host of individual differences that make all of us unique and
different from others. Page 123 FIGURE 4.3THE FOUR
LAYERS OF DIVERSITY *Internal dimensions and external
dimensions are adapted from M. Locken and J. B. Rosener,
Workforce America! (Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin,
1991). SOURCE: Reprinted from Diverse Teams at Work:
Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity by L. Gardenswartz and
A. Rowe, with permission of the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM). © 2003 SHRM. All rights reserved. Lee
Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe, a team of diversity experts,
identified four layers of diversity to help distinguish the
important ways in which people differ (see Figure 4.3). Taken
together, these layers define your personal identity and
influence how each of us sees the world. Figure 4.3 shows that
personality is at the center of the diversity wheel because it

represents a stable set of characteristics responsible for a
person’s identity. These are the dimensions of personality we
discussed in Chapter 3. The next layer of diversity includes
internal dimensions that are referred to as surface-level
dimensions of diversity. “Surface-level characteristics are those
that are quickly apparent to interactants, such as race, gender,
and age.”29 Because these characteristics are viewed as
unchangeable, they strongly influence our attitudes,
expectations, and assumptions about others, which, in turn,
influence our behavior. Take the encounter experienced by an
African-American woman in middle management while
vacationing at a resort. While she was sitting by the pool, “a
large 50-ish white male approached me and demanded that I get
him extra towels. I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He then said, ‘Oh, you
don’t work here,’ with no shred of embarrassment or apology in
his voice.”30 Stereotypes regarding one or more of the primary
dimensions of diversity most likely influenced this man’s
behavior toward the woman. Page 124 Figure 4.3 shows that the
next layer of diversity comprises external influences. They
represent individual differences that we have a greater ability to
influence or control. Examples include where you live today,
your religious affiliation, whether you are married and have
children, and your work experiences. These dimensions also
exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and
attitudes. The final layer of diversity includes organizational
dimensions such as seniority, job title and function, and work
location. Integrating these last two layers results in what is
called deep-level characteristics of diversity. “Deep-level
characteristics are those that take time to emerge in
interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values.”31 These
characteristics are definitely under our control. Affirmative
Action vs. Managing Diversity Affirmative action and managing
diversity are driven by very different values and goals. This
section highlights these differences. Affirmative ActionIt’s
important to understand that affirmative action is not a law in
and of itself. It is an outgrowth of equal employment

opportunity (EEO) legislation. The goal of this legislation is to
outlaw discrimination and to encourage organizations to
proactively prevent discrimination. Discrimination occurs when
employment decisions about an individual are due to reasons
not associated with performance or are not related to the job.
For example, organizations cannot discriminate on the basis of
race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical and
mental disabilities, and pregnancy. Affirmative action is an
artificial intervention aimed at giving management a chance to
correct an imbalance, injustice, mistake, or outright
discrimination that occurred in the past. Do the number of white
males stand out in this picture? Congress is sometimes
criticized for its lack of diversity. Congress is composed of 87
percent whites and 90 percent males. Page 125 Affirmative
action: •Can refer to both voluntary and mandatory programs.
•Does not legitimize quotas. Quotas are illegal. They can only
be imposed by judges who conclude that a company has engaged
in discriminatory practices. •Does not require companies to hire
unqualified people. •Has created tremendous opportunities for
women and minorities. •Does not foster the type of thinking that
is needed to manage diversity effectively. Is the last point
surprising? Research on affirmative action uncovered the
following divisive trends. Affirmative action plans are:
1.Perceived more negatively by white males than women and
minorities because white males see the plans as working against
their own self-interests. 2.Viewed more positively by people
who are liberals and Democrats than conservatives and
Republicans. 3.Not supported by people who possess racist or
sexist attitudes.32 4.Found to negatively affect the women and
minorities expected to benefit from them. Research
demonstrates that women and minorities, supposedly hired on
the basis of affirmative action, feel negatively stigmatized as
unqualified or incompetent.33 Helena Morrissey, CEO of
Newton Investment, is a good example on that last point. When
asked by a reporter to comment on women being selected to the
company board in order to fill a quota, she said, “I find quotas

condescending. I wouldn’t want to be part of a board because
I’m filling a quota.”34 Managing DiversityManaging diversity
enables people to perform up to their maximum potential. It
focuses on changing an organization’s culture and infrastructure
such that people provide the highest productivity possible. Ann
Morrison, a diversity expert, attempted to identify the type of
initiatives that companies use to manage diversity. She thus
conducted a study of 16 organizations that successfully
managed diversity. Her results uncovered three key strategies
for success: education, enforcement, and exposure. She
describes them as follows: •The educational component. This
“strategy has two thrusts: one is to prepare nontraditional
managers for increasingly responsible posts, and the other is to
help traditional managers overcome their prejudice in thinking
about and interacting with people who are of a different sex or
ethnicity.”35 •The enforcement component. This strategy “puts
teeth in diversity goals and encourages behavior change.”36
•The exposure component. This strategy exposes people to
others with different backgrounds and characteristics, which
“adds a more personal approach to diversity by helping
managers get to know and respect others who are different.”37
In summary, both consultants and academics believe that
organizations should strive to manage diversity rather than
being forced to use affirmative action. Page 126 4.5BUILDING
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY MAJOR
QUESTION What is the business rationale for managing
diversity? THE BIGGER PICTURE After reviewing the
business case for managing diversity, we also look at the
demographic changes occurring in the US workforce that make
the need to manage diversity all the more urgent. These
demographic changes have major implications for OB. The
growing diversity in the United States is not a business
initiative; it is a reality. Businesses can consciously choose to
manage diversity or get caught short by the demographic
changes facing the country. Business Rationale The rationale
for managing diversity is more than its legal, social, or moral

dimension. Quite simply, it’s good business. Managing diversity
gives the organization the ability to grow and maintain a
business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Here’s
what William Weldon, former chairman and CEO of Johnson &
Johnson, said: Diversity and inclusion are part of the fabric of
our businesses and are vital to our future success worldwide.
The principles of diversity and inclusion are rooted in Our
Credo [the company’s values] and enhance our ability to deliver
products and services to advance the health and well-being of
people throughout the world. We cannot afford to reduce our
focus on these critical areas in any business climate.38
Companies like Johnson & Johnson and Sodexo understand and
endorse this proposition. Research also supports the logic of the
strategy. For example, a recent study of 739 retail stores found
support for the access-and-legitimacy perspective, defined in
the following manner: An access-and-legitimacy perspective on
diversity is based in recognition that the organization’s markets
and constituencies are culturally diverse. It therefore behooves
the organization to match the diversity in parts of its own
workforce as a way of gaining access to and legitimacy with
those markets and constituent groups.39 This particular study
discovered that customer satisfaction and employee productivity
were higher when the racio-ethnic composition of customers
matched that of store employees.40 These favorable results
were taken one step further by another team of researchers.
They wanted to know if customers would spend more money in
stores when they perceived themselves as similar to the sales
representatives. Results from 212 stores supported the idea that
customer-employee similarity leads to more spending.41 We
hope you get the point. It pays to manage diversity, but
organizations cannot use diversity as a strategic advantage if
employees fail to contribute their full talents, abilities,
motivation, and commitment. It is thus essential for an
organization to create an environment or culture that allows all
employees to reach their full potential. Managing diversity is a
critical component of creating such an environment. To help

you in this endeavor, we review demographic characteristics of
the US workforce and then discuss the managerial implications
of demographic diversity. Page 127 Companies increasingly are
trying to match the race of their workforce with that of their
customers. Here we see African-American customers being
helped by an employee of similar race. Why would customers
prefer to be helped by someone of a similar race? Trends in
Workforce Diversity How is the US workforce changing? Let’s
examine five categories—gender, race, education, sexual
orientation, and age. Women Break the Glass Ceiling—but
Navigate a LabyrinthCoined in 1986, the term glass ceiling is
used to represent an invisible but absolute barrier or solid
roadblock that prevents women from advancing to higher-level
positions. Various statistics support the existence of a glass
ceiling. The pay gap between men and women is one example.
In 2012, the median weekly income in full-time management,
professional, and related occupations was $1,328 for men in
contrast to $951 for women. This gap continued for MBA
graduates. Female graduates from top MBA programs earned 93
cents for every dollar earned by a male graduate, and the pay
gap tends to increase over time.42 Also, a recent WSJ/NBC
national poll revealed that 40 percent of the women reported
experiencing gender discrimination.43 Alice Eagly and her
colleague Linda Carli conducted a thorough investigation into
the organizational life of women and in 2007 published their
conclusions that women had finally broken through the glass
ceiling.44 We updated data originally reported in Eagly and
Carli’s book and that led to their conclusion. There were many
more female CEOs in 2014 (24 and 50 female CEOs within
Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 firms, respectively) and more
women in managerial, professional, and related occupations
than there were in the 1980s and 1990s.45 Statistics further
showed that women had made strides along several measures:
1.Educational attainment (women earned the majority of
bachelor’s and master’s degrees from 2006 through 2012).
2.Seats on boards of directors of Fortune 500 firms (9.6% in

1995 and 16.6% in 2013). 3.Leadership positions in educational
institutions (in 2010, women represented 18.7% of college
presidents and 29.9% of board members). 4.Federal court
appointments (in 2013, 32% and 30% of federal courts of
appeals and US district court judges, respectively, were
women).46 You can interpret the above statistics in one of two
ways. •No Change. On the one hand, you might see proof that
women remain underpaid and underrepresented in leadership
positions, victims of discriminatory organizational practices.
•Positive Change. Alternatively, you can agree with Eagly and
Carli’s conclusion that “men still have more authority and
higher wages, but women have been catching up. Because some
women have moved into the most elite leadership roles, absolute
barriers are a thing of the past.”47 Eagly and Carli propose that
a woman’s career follows a pattern more characteristic of
traveling through a labyrinth. They use the labyrinth metaphor
because they believe that a woman’s path to success is not
direct or simple, but rather contains twists, turns, and
obstructions, particularly for married women with children.
Racial Groups Face Their Own Glass Ceiling and Perceived
DiscriminationThe US workforce is becoming increasingly
diverse. Between 2012 and 2060, the Census Bureau predicts
the following changes in ethnic representation: •Growth: The
Asian population (from 5.1% to 8.2%). •Growth: The Hispanic
population (from 17% to 31%). •Mild growth: The African-
American population (from 13.1% to 14.7%). •Decline: Non-
Hispanic whites (from 63% to 43%).48 Page 128 A female’s
career is thought to resemble a labyrinth like this. Note the
twists and turns that are needed to get through this maze. Have
you experienced twists and turns in your career? All told, the
so-called minority groups will constitute approximately 57
percent of the workforce in 2060, according to the Census
Bureau.49 And yet, three additional trends suggest that current-
day minority groups are stalled at their own glass ceiling.
Smaller percentage in the professional class. Hispanics, or
Latinas/os, and African Americans have a smaller relative hold

on managerial and professional jobs within their racial
groupings. Women generally do better than men. The
percentages shown below are the percentages of professionals
within each category. When the listing shows Asian men with a
48 percent ranking in managerial/professional jobs, it does not
mean that Asian men have 48 percent of all such jobs, but that
among all working Asian males, almost one in two is a manager
or a professional.50 More discrimination cases. The number of
race-based charges of discrimination that were deemed to show
reasonable cause by the US Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission increased from 294 in 1995 to 957 in 2013.
Companies paid a total of $112 million to resolve these claims
outside of litigation in 2013.51 Lower earnings. Minorities also
tend to earn less personal income than whites. Median weekly
earnings in 2010 were $1,103, $884, $1,275, and $895 for
whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, respectively.
Interestingly, Asians had the highest median income.52
Mismatch between Education and OccupationApproximately 37
percent of the labor force has a college degree, and college
graduates typically earn substantially more than workers with
less education.53 At the same time, however, three trends
suggest a mismatch between educational attainment and the
knowledge and skills needed by employers. First, recent studies
show that college graduates, while technically and functionally
competent, are lacking in terms of teamwork skills, critical
thinking, and analytic reasoning. Second, there is a shortage of
college graduates in technical fields related to science, math,
and engineering. Third, organizations are finding that high-
school graduates working in entry-level positions do not possess
the basic skills needed to perform effectively. This latter trend
is partly due to a national highschool-graduation rate of only 75
percent and the existence of about 32 million adults in the
United States who are functionally illiterate.54 Literacy is
defined as “an individual’s ability to read, write, and speak
English, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency
necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one’s

goals, and develop one’s knowledge and potential.”55 Many
studies on illiteracy refer to illiteracy costing America around
$60 billion a year in lost productivity. Such costs are worrisome
to both government officials and business leaders (see the
Example box). Generational Differences in an Aging
WorkforceAmerica’s population and workforce are getting
older, and the workforce includes greater generational
differences than ever before. We already see four generations of
employees working together, soon to be joined by a fifth (see
Table 4.1). Managers need to deal effectively with these
generational differences in values, attitudes, and behaviors.
Many companies (including IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ernst &
Young LLP, and Aetna) address this issue by providing training
workshops on generational diversity. Page 129 EXAMPLEWhy
Is a Skills Gap Important to the United States? The answer is all
about the relationship between human capital and economic
growth. Results from a global study presented in The Wall
Street Journal showed that “countries with higher math and
science skills have grown faster than those with lower-skilled
populations.”56 WHERE DOES THE UNITED STATES STAND
AGAINST OTHER COUNTRIES?The United States, once the
envy of the world, in 1990 had the largest percentage of 25- to
34-year-olds with at least a college degree. Now the United
States lags behind 14 other developed countries according to the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).57 More specifically, in 2009 the United States ranked
31st in math—similar to Portugal and Italy—on the OECD’s
Programme for International Student Assessment. If you
consider “advanced” performance on math, “16 countries
produced twice as many high achievers per capita than the U.S.
did.” WHY IS THE UNITED STATES FALLING
BEHIND?There are several reasons. Too many high school
dropouts is one. Another has to deal with the degrees students
are pursuing. “Not all bachelor’s degrees are the same,”
Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the
Workforce said in an extensive analysis issue last year. “While

going to college is undoubtedly a wise decision, what you take
while you’re there matters a lot, too.”58 Many students simply
are majoring in subjects that are not in demand. HOW IS THE
UNITED STATES TRYING TO OVERCOME THE SKILLS
GAP?Referencing this gap, President Obama declared that “by
2020 America will once again have the highest proportion of
college graduates in the world.”59 While such rhetoric won’t
get the job done, it does point the country in the right direction.
The president is also pushing for more student aid. Calls for
federal and state governments, educators, associations, work
councils, and organizations to cooperatively work together to
solve this problem may yield results. One renewed idea is an
increase in the use of apprenticeships. Apprenticeships let an
organization train employees on the skills needed by the
business. There were more than 375,000 people registered for
apprenticeship programs in 2013.60 Educators are retooling the
content of what they teach. Ellen Van Velso, a senior fellow at
the Center for Creative Leadership, noted that “while
undergraduate business administration and MBA programs
provide students with a variety of technical skills, leadership
and other soft skills are virtually absent in many programs.”61
Educators are also changing how they teach, for example, with
personalized learning. Personalized learning entails combining
“a new generation of sophisticated adaptive courseware” with
the “best of teacher- and computer-delivered instruction.” In
this vein, some schools in New York City are experimenting
with a “comprehensive math program called School of One, in
which each student receives a unique daily schedule, called a
playlist, based on his or her academic strengths and needs.
Students in the same classroom receive substantially different
instruction every day, often from several teachers, both in
person and online.”62 YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.Are you hopeful
that the United States can regain its dominance in human
capital? 2.How valuable do you see each of the specific efforts
to reduce the skills gap identified above? 3.What else would
you recommend as a solution to cure the skills gap? Based on

the labels used in Table 4.1, how many different generations do
you see? Do you think it’s harder for a boomer to supervise a
Millennial or vice versa? Table 4.1 summarizes generational
differences using common labels: Traditionalists, baby boomers,
Gen Xers, Millennials/Gen Ys, and the incoming Gen 2020s. We
use such labels (and resulting generalizations) for sake of
discussion. There are always exceptions to the characterizations
shown in Table 4.1.63 Millennials account for the largest block
of employees in the workforce, followed by baby boomers. This
is important because many Millennials are being managed by
boomers who possess very different values and personal traits.
Traits, discussed in Chapter 3, represent stable physical and
mental characteristics that form an individual’s identity.
Conflicting values and traits are likely to create friction
between people. For example, the workaholic and competitive
nature of boomers is likely to conflict with the entitled and
work–life balance perspective of Millennials. Managers and
employees alike will need to be sensitive to the generational
differences highlighted in Table 4.1. Page 130 TABLE
4.1GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES SOURCE: Adapted from
J. C. Meister and K. Willyerd, The 2020 Workplace (New York:
Harper Collins, 2010), 54–55; and R. Alsop, The Trophy Kids
Grow Up (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 5. Have age-
related differences at school or work caused any conflicts for
you? The following Self-Assessment was created to assess your
attitudes toward older employees. Because the term “older” is
relative, we encourage you to define “older employees” in your
own terms when completing the assessment. SELF-
ASSESSMENT 4.1Attitudes about Working with Older
Employees Go to connect.mheducation.com and take Self-
Assessment 4.1. Then consider the following questions: 1.What
is your attitude about working with older employees? Are you
surprised by the results? 2.What is your level of satisfaction
working with older employees? 3.Based on your results, what
can you do to improve your satisfaction associated with working
with older employees? Page 131 4.6BARRIERS AND

CHALLENGES TO MANAGING DIVERSITY MAJOR
QUESTION What are the most common barriers to
implementing successful diversity programs? THE BIGGER
PICTURE Wouldn’t you rather know what obstacles lay ahead,
instead of discovering them too late? We share 11 common
challenges in effectively managing diversity. Diversity is a
sensitive, potentially volatile, and sometimes uncomfortable
issue for people. For example, some think that diversity
programs serve to create reverse discrimination against whites,
and others believe that it is immoral to be anything other than
heterosexual. It is therefore not surprising that organizations
encounter significant barriers when trying to move forward with
diversity initiatives. The following is a list of the most common
barriers to implementing successful diversity programs:64
1.Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice. This barrier manifests
itself in the belief that differences are viewed as weaknesses. In
turn, this promotes the view that diversity hiring will mean
sacrificing competence and quality. A good example can be seen
by considering a particular stereotype that significantly
disadvantages women during salary negotiations. “Women are
generally seen as low in competence but high in warmth, and
men are seen as high in competence but low in warmth.”65
Research shows that women experience backlash when they
engage in genderincongruent behaviors like being an aggressive
negotiator. The end result is that recruiters or hiring managers
lose interest in hiring or working with women who violate the
high-warmth, low-competence stereotype.66 2.Ethnocentrism.
The ethnocentrism barrier represents the feeling that one’s
cultural rules and norms are superior or more appropriate than
the rules and norms of another culture. 3.Poor career planning.
This barrier is associated with the lack of opportunities for
diverse employees to get the type of work assignments that
qualify them for senior management positions. 4.A negative
diversity climate. We define organizational climate in Chapter 7
as employee perceptions about an organization’s formal and
informal policies, practices, and procedures. Diversity climate

is a subcomponent of an organization’s overall climate and is
defined as the employees’ aggregate “perceptions about the
organization’s diversity-related formal structure characteristics
and informal values.”67 Diversity climate is positive when
employees view the organization as being fair to all types of
employees; the concept of organizational fairness is raised
again in Chapter 5. Recent research revealed that a positive
diversity climate enhanced employees’ psychological safety.
Psychological safety reflects the extent to which people feel
safe to express their ideas and beliefs without fear of negative
consequences. As you might expect, psychological safety is
positively associated with outcomes in the Integrative
Framework.68 5.An unsupportive and hostile working
environment for diverse employees. Sexual, racial, and age
harassment are common examples of hostile work environments.
Whether perpetrated against women, men, older individuals, or
LGBT people, hostile environments are demeaning, unethical,
and appropriately called “work environment pollution.” You
certainly won’t get employees’ best work if they believe that
the work environment is hostile toward them. Remember, a
hostile work environment is perceptual. This means that people
have different perceptions of what entails “hostility.” It also is
important to note that harassment can take place via e-mail,
texting, and other forms of social media. Page 132 6.Lack of
political savvy on the part of diverse employees. Diverse
employees may not get promoted because they do not know how
to “play the game” of getting along and getting ahead in an
organization. Research reveals that women and people of color
are excluded from organizational networks.69 Some
organizations attempt to overcome this barrier by creating
employee-resource groups. These groups encourage individuals
with similar backgrounds to share common experiences and
success strategies. American Express has 16 network groups and
Cisco has 11.70 7.Difficulty in balancing career and family
issues. Women still assume the majority of the responsibilities
associated with raising children. This makes it harder for

women to work evenings and weekends or to frequently travel
once they have children. Even without children in the picture,
household chores take more of a woman’s time than a man’s
time. 8.Fears of reverse discrimination. Some employees believe
that managing diversity is a smoke screen for reverse
discrimination. This belief leads to very strong resistance
because people feel that one person’s gain is another’s loss.
9.Diversity is not seen as an organizational priority. This leads
to subtle resistance that shows up in the form of complaints and
negative attitudes. Employees may complain about the time,
energy, and resources devoted to diversity that could have been
spent doing “real work.” 10.The need to revamp the
organization’s performance appraisal and reward system.
Performance appraisals and reward systems must reinforce the
need to effectively manage diversity. This means that success
will be based on a new set of criteria. For example, General
Electric evaluates the extent to which its managers are inclusive
of employees with different backgrounds. These evaluations are
used in salary and promotion decisions.71 11.Resistance to
change. Effectively managing diversity entails significant
organizational and personal change. As discussed in Chapter 16,
people resist change for many different reasons. Now that you
know about the importance of the diversity climate, are you
curious about the diversity climate in a current or former
employer? If yes, take the Self-Assessment below. It measures
the components of an organization’s diversity climate and will
enable you to determine if your employer has or had a favorable
or unfavorable climate. SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.2Assessing an
Organization’s Diversity Climate Go to
connect.mheducation.com and take Self-Assessment 4.2. Then
consider the following questions: 1.What were the three
highest- and lowest-rated survey items? What does this tell you
about your employer? 2.Based on these scores, what advice
would you give to the person in charge of human resources at
the company you evaluated? In summary, managing diversity is
a critical component of organizational success. It is not an easy

task, but it is important if you want to create an environment
that engages and motivates employees to do their best. Page 133
4.7ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES USED TO
EFFECTIVELY MANAGE DIVERSITY MAJOR QUESTION
What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity,
and what works best? THE BIGGER PICTURE Whether you
manage a diverse work group or find yourself managed within a
diverse work group, you’ll do better by understanding the
various ways in which organizations attempt to manage
diversity. You’ll be able to review eight options in the
following. Hint: We recommend mutual adaptation. What are
organizations doing to effectively manage diversity? We can
answer this question by first providing a framework for
categorizing organizational initiatives. Framework of Options
One especially relevant framework was developed by R.
Roosevelt Thomas Jr., a diversity expert. He identified eight
generic action options that can be used to address any type of
diversity issue. After describing each action option, we discuss
relationships among them.72 Option 1: Include/ExcludeThis
choice is an outgrowth of affirmative-action programs. Its
primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of
diverse people at all levels of the organization. Shoney’s
restaurant chain represents a good example of a company that
attempted to include diverse employees after settling a
discrimination lawsuit. The company subsequently hired
African Americans into positions of diningroom supervisors and
vice presidents, added more franchises owned by African
Americans, and purchased more goods and services from
minority-owned companies.73 Option 2: DenyPeople using this
option deny that differences exist. Denial may manifest itself in
proclamations that all decisions are color, gender, and age blind
and that success is solely determined by merit and performance.
Consider Novartis Pharmaceuticals, for example. The company
lost a gender discrimination lawsuit to a class of 5,600 female
representatives, costing the company $152 million. Holly
Waters, one of the plaintiffs, charged that “she was not only

paid less than her male equivalents at Novartis, but was fired
when she was seven months pregnant after taking a few weeks
off on advice of her doctors.” Holly Waters was the highest
performer in her district.74 Novartis denied that gender
discrimination was a companywide issue despite the fact that
5,600 women will receive compensation.75 Page 134 Option 3:
AssimilateThe basic premise behind this alternative is that all
diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant
group. It only takes time and reinforcement for people to see the
light. Organizations initially assimilate employees through their
recruitment practices and the use of company-orientation
programs. New hires generally are put through orientation
programs that aim to provide employees with the organization’s
preferred values and a set of standard operating procedures.
Employees then are encouraged to refer to the policies and
procedures manual when they are confused about what to do in
a specific situation. These practices create homogeneity among
employees. Option 4: SuppressDifferences are squelched or
discouraged when using this approach. This can be done by
telling or reinforcing others to quit whining and complaining
about issues. The old “you’ve got to pay your dues” line is
another frequently used way to promote the status quo. Option
5: IsolateThis option maintains the current way of doing things
by setting the diverse person off to the side. In this way the
individual is unable to influence organizational change.
Managers can isolate people by putting them on special
projects. Entire work groups or departments are isolated by
creating functionally independent entities, frequently referred to
as “silos.” Shoney Inc.’s employees commented to a Wall Street
Journal reporter about isolation practices formerly used by the
company: White managers told of how Mr. Danner [previous
chairman of the company] told them to fire blacks if they
became too numerous in restaurants in white neighborhoods; if
they refused, they would lose their jobs, too. Some also said
that when Mr. Danner was expected to visit their restaurant,
they scheduled black employees off that day or, in one case, hid

them in the bathroom. Others said blacks’ applications were
coded and discarded.76 Option 6: TolerateToleration entails
acknowledging differences but not valuing or accepting them. It
represents a live-and-let-live approach that superficially allows
organizations to give lip service to the issue of managing
diversity. Toleration is different from isolation in that it allows
for the inclusion of diverse people. However, differences are
not really valued or accepted when an organization uses this
option. Option 7: Build RelationshipsThis approach is based on
the premise that good relationships can overcome differences. It
addresses diversity by fostering quality relationships—
characterized by acceptance and understanding—among diverse
groups. Marriott, for example, has paired younger and older
employees into teams so that they can more effectively
capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses.77 Marriott hotels
is upgrading the look in its hotel rooms to appeal to a wider
base of customers. Here we see J.W. Marriott Jr. (right) with his
three sons, John (left), Steve (second left), and David pulling on
a ceremonial gold rope to unveil a model of the new room
design. Option 8: Foster Mutual Adaptation In this option,
people are willing to adapt or change their views for the sake of
creating positive relationships with others. This implies that
employees and management alike must be willing to accept
differences and, most important, agree that everyone and
everything is open for change. Diversity training is one way to
kick-start mutual adaptation. Research shows that such training
can positively enhance people’s attitudes and feelings about
working with diverse employees.78 Conclusions about Action
OptionsAlthough the action options can be used alone or in
combination, some are clearly better than others. Exclusion,
denial, assimilation, suppression, isolation, and toleration are
among the least preferred options. Inclusion, building
relationships, and mutual adaptation are the preferred strategies.
That said, Thomas reminds us that mutual adaptation is the only
approach that unquestionably endorses the philosophy behind
managing diversity. In closing this discussion, it is important to

note that choosing how to best manage diversity is a dynamic
process that is determined by the context at hand. For instance,
some organizations are not ready for mutual adaptation. The
best one might hope for in this case is the inclusion of diverse
people. Page 135 How Companies Are Responding to the
Challenges of Diversity We close the chapter by sharing some
examples and models that demonstrate how companies are
responding to emerging challenges of managing diversity. If
you compare the following actions against Thomas’s
framework, you’ll find the greatest activity around Options 7
and 8, of building relationships or fostering mutual adaptation.
Response: Paying Attention to Sexual OrientationA research
project conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA revealed
that about 3.5 percent of adults identify as lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). This amounts to 9 million
Americans.79 But there are challenges. It is currently legal in
29 states to fire employees whose sexual orientation is
something other than heterosexual, and it is legal in 34 states to
fire transgender individuals.80 This situation is likely to create
negative job attitudes and feelings of marginalization for LGBT
people. Corporate law firm Bingham McCutchen and Adobe
Systems have tried to overcome this problem by instituting
programs such as additional benefits for transgender employees
and same-sex-partner benefits.81 Response: Responding to
Changing Customer DemographicsA Citizens Union Bank
branch in Louisville, Kentucky, designed and staffed the branch
with the goal of attracting more Latina/o customers. The
interior contains “bright, colorful walls of yellows and blues,
large-scale photos of Latin American countries, comfortable
couches, sit-down desks, a children’s play area, a television
tuned to Hispanic programming and even a vending area stocked
with popular Latin American–brand soft drinks and snacks.”
The branch also took on a new name: Nuestro Banco, Spanish
for “Our Bank.” Branch deposits are setting records, and the
CEO is planning to use this same model in other locations.82
The point to remember is that companies need to adopt policies

and procedures that meet the needs of all employees. As such,
programs such as day care and elder care, flexible work
schedules, and benefits such as paternal leaves, less-rigid
relocation policies, concierge services, and mentoring programs
are likely to become more popular. Response: Helping Women
Navigate the Career LabyrinthOrganizations can make
navigation easier by providing the developmental assignments
that prepare women for promotional opportunities and providing
flexible work schedules. For example, Boston Consulting Group
“focuses heavily on recruiting and retaining women, offering
part-time options, mentoring and professional-development
programs.” Companies like McKinsey & Co. and Goldman
Sachs Groups are using “on-ramping” programs to attract
former female employees to return to work. On-ramping
represents the process companies use to encourage people to
reenter the workforce after a temporary career break. Goldman,
for example, instituted “returnship” programs that offer short-
term job assignments to former employees.83 Response:
Helping Hispanics SucceedMiami Children’s Hospital and Shaw
Industries Inc. in Dalton, Georgia, attempted to improve
employee productivity, satisfaction, and motivation by
developing customized training programs to improve the
communication skills of their Spanish-speaking employees.84
Research further reveals that the retention and career
progression of minorities can be significantly enhanced through
effective mentoring. Page 136 Response: Providing both
Community and Corporate Training to Reduce the Mismatch
between Education and Job Requirements To combat this issue
on a more global level, companies like JPMorgan Chase & Co.
are partnering with local communities. JPMorgan started The
Fellowship Initiative (TFI) in New York in 2010 and expanded
it to Chicago and Los Angeles in 2014. The goal of the program
is to provide intensive academic and leadership training to
young men of color. Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of
JPMorgan, is committed to the program. He concluded that
“these young men need access to high quality education and

positive role models in and outside the classroom.” New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg applauded JPMorgan’s effort by
concluding that “we need more civic-minded companies and
organizations to step up and join this work, and I congratulate
JPMorgan Chase for being a leader in this effort and for making
a real difference in the lives of young men of color in our
city.”85 At the individual corporate level, companies like
Wheeler Machinery Co. in Salt Lake City have instituted
specialized training programs that enable less-qualified people
to perform more technically oriented jobs. Lockheed Martin and
Agilent Technologies also offer some type of paid
apprenticeship or internship to attract high-school students
interested in the sciences.86 Response: Retaining and Valuing
Skills and Expertise in an Aging WorkforceHere are seven
initiatives that can help organizations to motivate and retain an
aging workforce: 1.Provide challenging work assignments that
make a difference to the firm. 2.Give the employee considerable
autonomy and latitude in completing a task. 3.Provide equal
access to training and learning opportunities when it comes to
new technology. 4.Provide frequent recognition for skills,
experience, and wisdom gained over the years. 5.Provide
mentoring opportunities whereby older workers can pass on
accumulated knowledge to younger employees. 6.Ensure that
older workers receive sensitive, high-quality supervision.
7.Design a work environment that is both stimulating and fun.87
You’ll see a number of these tactics at work in the employers
who made AARP’s 2013 list of best employers for older
workers, as, for example, the training and learning opportunities
provided by every employer who made the list. Employers
making the list typically offer flextime, compressed work
schedules, job sharing, and telecommuting. Representative
winners: Scripps Health, National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association, and S&T Bank.88 Response: Resolving
Generational DifferencesTraditional and boomer managers are
encouraged to consider their approach toward managing the
technologically savvy Gen Xers and Gen Ys. Gen Xers and Ys,

for instance, are more likely to visit social networking sites
during the work day, often perceiving this activity as a “virtual
coffee break.” In contrast, Traditional and boomer managers are
more likely to view this as wasted time, thereby leading to
policies that attempt to shut down such activity. Experts suggest
that restricting access to social media will not work in the long
run if an employer wants to motivate younger employees.
Would you like to improve your working relationships with
diverse people? If yes, then the Self-Assessment shown on the
following page can help. It asks you to compare yourself with a
group of other people you interact with and then to examine the
quality of the relationships between yourself and these
individuals. This enables you to gain a better understanding of
how similarities and differences among people influence your
attitudes and behavior. Page 137 SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.3How
Does My Diversity Profile Affect My Relationships with Other
People? Go to connect.mheducation.com and take Self-
Assessment 4.3. Then consider the following questions:
1.Which diversity dimensions have the greatest influence with
respect to the quality of your interpersonal relationships?
2.Consider the person with whom you have the most difficulty
working. Which dimensions of diversity may contribute to this
bad relationship? What can you do to improve the relationship?
Response: Keep Working at ItManaging diversity takes
commitment. Sodexo is a good example (see the box below).
The company went from being highly regarded in managing
diversity, to encountering diversity-related problems. The
company is working to overcome these issues. solving
application Sodexo Encounters Diversity-Related Problems
Sodexo, one of the world’s largest providers of food services
and management, with nearly 420,000 employees in 80
countries, is a good example of a company that has attempted to
effectively manage diversity. Sodexo has a deserved if well-
groomed reputation for its diversity efforts, but the company’s
record is not perfect. Although the company was rated by
DiversityInc in 2013 as the very best company for diversity

based on its annual survey of 893 firms, Sodexo still is
encountering diversity-related problems.89 Problems at Sodexo.
Sodexo began its diversity program in 2002 in response to an
anti-discrimination class-action lawsuit, brought by African-
American employees who claimed they were not being promoted
at the same rate as their white colleagues. The suit was
eventually settled for $80 million in 2005. In 2010 NPR
reported that “about a quarter of the company’s managers are
minorities, but only about 12 percent are black, which is not
much of a change from five years ago, when the lawsuit was
settled.”90 Sodexo continues to have issues with labor and the
law. Since the 2005 settlement, allegations of discrimination
have continued, although often local in scope. The company has
had other labor problems, with workers complaining about low
wages. Also in 2010 Sodexo was called out by the Human
Rights Watch in a 2010 report detailing the company’s
violations of workers’ rights to unionize at several US
locations. On the legal front Sodexo has fought isolated health
code violations and charges of pocketing rebates from vendors
to the detriment of several state clients.91 In 2013 Sodexo
agreed to pay $20 million in one such rebate fraud lawsuit
brought by New York.92 Executives from Sodexo speaking to
employees. YOUR CALL Apply the 3-Stop Problem-Solving
Approach. Stop 1:What is the problem in this case? Stop
2:Identify the OB concepts or theories to use to solve the
problem. Stop 3:What would you do to correct this situation?
Page 138 what did i learn? You learned that social perception
and managing diversity are essential for success. Why? Social
perception, so that you can better understand the perception
process, improve how you are perceived, and adjust your own
perception to avoid common perceptual errors; managing
diversity (represented by demographics in our Integrative
Framework), so that you can better optimize diversity’s effect
on individual and group/team outcomes. Reinforce your learning
with the Key Points below. Then, consolidate your learning
using the Integrative Framework. Finally, Challenge your

mastery of the material by answering the Major Questions in
your own words. Key Points for Understanding Chapter 4 You
learned the following key points. 4.1A SOCIAL
INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL OF PERCEPTION
•Perception is a mental and cognitive process that enables us to
interpret and understand our surroundings. •Social perception is
a four-stage process. The four stages are selective
attention/comprehension, encoding and simplification, storage
and retention, and retrieval and response (see Figure 4.1).
•Social perception affects a wide variety of organizational
activities including hiring decisions, performance appraisals,
leadership, and designing web pages. 4.2STEREOTYPES
•Stereotypes are used during encoding and represent
overgeneralized beliefs about the characteristics of a group.
•Stereotypes are not always negative, and they are not always
inaccurate. •Common stereotypes involve gender, race, and age.
•Stereotyping is a four-step process that includes categorization,
inference, expectation formation, and maintenance. •Stereotypes
are maintained by (a) overestimating the frequency of
stereotypic behaviors exhibited by others, (b) incorrectly
explaining expected and unexpected behaviors, and (c)
differentiating minority individuals from oneself. 4.3CAUSAL
ATTRIBUTIONS •Causal attributions represent suspected or
inferred causes of behavior. •According to Kelley’s model of
causal attribution, external attributions tend to be made when
consensus and distinctiveness are high and consistency is low.
Internal (personal responsibility) attributions tend to be made
when consensus and distinctiveness are low and consistency is
high. •The fundamental attribution bias involves emphasizing
personal factors more than situational factors while formulating
attributions. The self-serving bias involves personalizing the
causes of one’s success and externalizing the causes of one’s
failures. 4.4DEFINING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY
•Diversity represents the individual differences that make
people different from and similar to each other. •Diversity
varies along “surface-level” characteristics like race, gender,

and age. It also varies along “deep-level” characteristics such as
attitudes, opinions, and values. •Affirmative action is an
outgrowth of equal employment opportunity legislation and is
an artificial intervention aimed at giving management a chance
to correct past discrimination. •Managing diversity entails
creating a host of organizational changes that enable all people
to perform up to their maximum potential. 4.5BUILDING THE
BUSINESS CASE FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY •Managing
diversity is predicted to be good business because it aims to
engage employees and satisfy customers’ unique needs. •There
are four key demographic trends: (a) women navigating a
labyrinth after breaking the glass ceiling, (b) racial groups
encountering a glass ceiling and perceived discrimination, (c) a
mismatch existing between workers’ educational attainment and
occupational requirements, and (d) generational differences in
an aging workforce. 4.6BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES TO
MANAGING DIVERSITY Page 139 •There are 11 barriers to
successfully implementing diversity initiatives: (a) inaccurate
stereotypes and prejudice, (b) ethnocentrism, (c) poor career
planning, (d) a negative diversity climate, (e) an unsupportive
and hostile working environment for diverse employees, (f) lack
of political savvy on the part of diverse employees, (g)
difficulty in balancing career and family issues, (h) fears of
reverse discrimination, (i) diversity not seen as an
organizational priority, (j) the need to revamp the
organization’s performance appraisal and reward system, and
(k) resistance to change. 4.7ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES
USED TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE DIVERSITY
•Organizations have eight options that they can use to address
diversity issues: (a) include/exclude the number of diverse
people at all levels of the organization, (b) deny that differences
exist, (c) assimilate diverse people into the dominant group, (d)
suppress differences, (e) isolate diverse members from the
larger group, (f) tolerate differences among employees, (g)
build relationships among diverse employees, and (h) foster
mutual adaptation to create positive relationships. The

Integrative Framework for Chapter 4 As shown in Figure 4.4,
you learned that demographics representing diversity serve as a
key input and perceptions and group/team dynamics are crucial
processes. These result in a variety of important outcomes, chief
among them well-being/flourishing at the individual level and
being the employer of choice and reputation at the
organizational level. These outcomes appear in boldface. Other
outcomes listed were touched upon in the chapter. Challenge:
Major Questions for Chapter 4 At the start of the chapter, we
told you that after reading the chapter you should be able to
answer the following major questions. Unless you can, have you
really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter?
Refer to the Key Points, Figure 4.4, the chapter itself, and your
notes to revisit and answer the following major questions:
1.How does the perception process affect the quality of my
decisions and interpersonal relationships? 2.How can I use
knowledge of stereotypes to make better decisions and manage
more effectively? 3.How do I tend to interpret employee
performance? 4.How does awareness about the layers of
diversity help organizations effectively manage diversity?
5.What is the business rationale for managing diversity? 6.What
are the most common barriers to implementing successful
diversity programs? 7.What are organizations doing to
effectively manage diversity, and what works best? FIGURE
4.4INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING
AND APPLYING OB © 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate.
All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission
of the authors. Page 140 PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION
CASE (PSAC) Seal of Disapproval Wet Seal Inc. sells women’s
clothes and accessories under two brands in malls and shopping
centers across the country (and Puerto Rico). Under the Wet
Seal banner, nearly 470 stores target younger female customers
aged 13 to 23 years old. Its Arden B brand, through some 80
stores, targets women aged 21 to 39. These age ranges come
from the company itself (at wetsealinc.com), which identifies
Wet Seal as a “trend-right fashion retailer” and its target as

“girls,” with its core customer at 16 years of age, who loves
fashion and shops frequently, both in the mall and online. The
company identifies Arden B as a “contemporary fashion
destination” with its target as “women,” and its core customer at
28 years of age, who maintains a full social calendar and is
always “dressed.” So far so good. But why would the company
want to trigger a furor over outrageously callous and nearly
unthinkable racist hiring practices? The issue went public in
2012 but has earlier roots. Wrong by Race For Nicole Cogdell
the trouble started in 2009 when she and her associates at the
Wet Seal store in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, were preparing
to welcome visiting Senior Vice President of Store Operations
Barbara Bachman. After the meet and greet, Cogdell was
shocked by what happened next. “I later overheard her say to
the district manager, ‘I was expecting someone with blond hair
and blue eyes.’ She also said that I was not the brand image that
Wet Seal wanted to project and the regional manager must have
been out of her mind to promote an African American as store
manager for the King of Prussia store.”93 Cogdell said that her
two associates heard the comment too. She was later terminated,
and said her district manager told her she was being fired
because she was African American. “I was completely
embarrassed and humiliated. I was just shocked that someone
would say something like that. . . . I never dealt with race
discrimination at any of my jobs prior to this situation. I was
just overall devastated.” Consolation Job The company offered
her a new position. “That job consisted of a demotion from my
previous position,” she said, with “less pay and going back to
the Springfield store. I declined the offer because the company
refused to address their policies. I have always been a
professional in the workplace, and I believe you should be
judged by your performance and not the color of your skin.”
Management Edicts Cogdell’s contention that racial bias was a
matter of company policy has surprising collaboration. In a
March 2009 e-mail to the Vice President of Store Operations
and a district manager, under the heading “Global Issues,”

Bachman wrote, “Store Teams need diversity—African
Americans dominate—huge issue.” After observing a number of
African-American employees working at a store, another senior
executive ordered a district manager to “clean the entire store
out.”94 Lawsuit In 2012 the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) of the
National Association of Colored People (NAACP) filed Cogdell
v. Wet Seal. The class action lawsuit alleged that “top
executives at Wet Seal directed senior managers to get rid of
African American store management employees for the sake of
its ‘brand image,’ and to hire more white employees.”95 Joining
Cogdell as plaintiffs were two other former Wet Seal
employees: Myriam Saint-Hilaire, also from the King of Prussia
store, and Kai Hawkins, who had worked at Wet Seal locations
in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs seek
back pay, general damages, and punitive damages.
Documentation “This case is remarkable in part because the
discriminatory policies are documented by former managers, but
also in an e-mail from the senior vice president,” Brad
Seligman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said. “There is
nothing subtle here.”96 Elsewhere Seligman was quoted as
saying, “They perceived that they would reach white markets
better if they had more white managers. You have explicit
directions from the very top of the company to terminate
African American managers.”97 EEOC Determination In
November 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission announced it had found that Wet Seal illegally
discriminated against Cogdell. In its statement, citing unusually
blatant evidence of racial discrimination, the director of the
commission’s Philadelphia office noted that Wet Seal’s
“corporate managers have openly stated they wanted employees
who had the ‘Armani look, were white, had blue eyes, thin and
blond’ to be profitable.’”98 Note: By this time the EEOC had
received over 20 complaints against Wet Seal.99 Page 141
Resigned vs. Being Forced Out In the suit, Wet Seal claimed
that Cogdell had resigned her position for unknown reasons and
therefore the company was not guilty of an adverse employment

action. In contrast, the EEOC determination was that the hostile
environment forced her to resign and that resignation was her
only recourse. Selective Diversity In defending her e-mail in an
August 2012 deposition, Bachman said she wrote her comments
to stress the importance of having diversity in all stores. The
EEOC determination noted that “witness interviews revealed
that Bachman never expressed diversity concerns in stores with
a predominantly white sales force but encouraged it because the
sales force mirrored the community.”100 Bachman, by the way,
left Wet Seal in 2011 and is now a retail consultant. Race,
Retail, Body Image As of a recent visit to the Wet Seal site
(wetseal.com), five photographs showed eight young women in
all, with some models appearing more than once. All women
were young, thin, and attractive; all but one model were clearly
white. The one non-Caucasian model, who may be African
American or of mixed race, appeared twice, once alone and once
standing with another model. The site also has numerous links
at the bottom of the page to stress the company’s commitment
to diversity. Online Demographics While Wet Seal does not
publish the demographics of its customers beyond targeting
specific age groups, a web analytics company purports to do
just that. Quantcast Corporation routinely provides free
analytics of web traffic to major vendors to induce the vendors
to purchase its premium data services. Basically Quantcast
extrapolates specific demographic data from known profiles
developed from unique computer or ISP identifiers. With
caveats that its statistics on wetseal.com are partial and include
estimates, the stats are most useful as relative measures
compared to the demographics associated with all web users. A
recent tally by Quantcast showed wetseal.com traffic in gender
to be 64% female (vs. 51% for the net overall). In age, the
under 18-component at 36% was highest, followed by the 18–24
group at 28% (vs. 18% and 12% for the net overall). In race,
visitors were 49% Caucasian and 26% African American,
followed by Hispanic and Asian segments (vs. 75% Caucasian
and 9% African American, again followed by Hispanic and

Asian). The figures relate only to visits and not sales. Employee
View Meanwhile, current employee reviews of Wet Seal as an
employer on the employer ranking site glassdoor.com do not
mention racial discrimination, but some reviews complain of
favoritism, especially on the basis of appearance. Apply the 3-
Stop Problem-Solving Approach to OB Use the Integrative
Framework in Figure 4.4 along the journey through all three
stops to help identify inputs, processes, and outcomes relative
to this case. Stop 1.Define the problem. Stop 2.Identify the OB
concepts or theories to use to solve the problem. Stop 3.Make
recommendations and (if appropriate) take action. And then . . .
•Justify your solution. •Tell how you will evaluate the
effectiveness of your solution. LEGAL/ETHICAL
CHALLENGE Swastikas and Neonatal Care This case involved
an incident that occurred at Hurley Medical Center in Michigan.
It resulted in a lawsuit. Tonya Battle, a veteran black nurse in
Hurley’s neonatal intensive care unit, was taking care of a baby
when a man walked into the unit. The man, who had a swastika
tattoo, reached for the baby and was stopped by Tonya. She
asked to see the wristband that identified him as the baby’s
parent. This was apparently hospital policy. “He abruptly told
her he wanted to see her supervisor, who then advised Battle
she should no longer care for the child.”101 The man requested
that no African-American nurses should take care of his child.
A note was subsequently put on the assignment clipboard
saying, “No African American nurse to take care of baby.”
Tonya was “shocked, offended, and in disbelief that she was so
egregiously discriminated against based on her race and re-
assigned, according to the lawsuit, which asks for punitive
damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation and
damages to her reputation.102 Battle could not understand why
the hospital would accommodate the man’s request. Although
the note was later removed, black nurses were not allowed to
care for the child for about a month. Page 142 It is important to
note that the “American Medical Association’s ethics code bars
doctors from refusing to treat people based on race, gender, and

other criteria, but there are no specific policies for handling
race-based requests from patients.” Further, a survey of
“emergency physicians found patients often make such requests,
and they are routinely accommodated. A third of doctors who
responded said they felt patients perceive better care from
providers of shared demographics, with racial matches
considered more important than gender or religion.”103 Your
Views What would you have done if you were a medical
administrator at the time the request was made? 1.I would not
have honored the man’s request. I would have explained why
Tonya Battle and other African-American nurses are best suited
to take care of his child. 2.I would have done exactly what the
hospital did. The man has a right to have his child taken care of
by someone with a race or gender of his choosing. What would
you do about the lawsuit? 1.Fight it. It’s ridiculous that
someone would feel emotional stress and humiliation from
simply being reassigned. 2.Settle the lawsuit and create a policy
that prohibits honoring future requests like this. 3.Settle the
lawsuit but not create a policy prohibiting accommodating such
requests. Rather, hold a hospitalwide meeting explaining the
rationale for why the hospital needs to accommodate such
requests. GROUP EXERCISE Managing Diversity-Related
Interactions Objectives 1.To improve your ability to manage
diversity-related interactions more effectively. 2.To explore
different approaches for handling diversity interactions.
Introduction The interpersonal component of managing diversity
can be awkward and uncomfortable. This is partly due to the
fact that resolving diversity interactions requires us to deal with
situations we may never have encountered before. The purpose
of this exercise is to help you manage diversity-related
interactions more effectively. To do so, you will be asked to
read three scenarios and then decide how you will handle each
situation. Instructions Presented here are three scenarios
depicting diversityrelated interactions. Please read the first
scenario, and then answer the three questions that follow it.
Follow the same procedure for the next two scenarios. Next,

divide into groups of three. One at a time, each person should
present his or her responses to the three questions for the first
scenario. The groups should then discuss the various approaches
that were proposed to resolve the diversity interaction and try to
arrive at a consensus recommendation. Follow the same
procedure for the next two scenarios. SCENARIO 1 Dave, who
is one of your direct reports, comes to you and says that he and
Scott are having a special commitment ceremony to celebrate
the beginning of their lives together. He has invited you to the
ceremony. Normally the department has a party and cake for
special occasions. Mary, who is one of Dave’s peers, has just
walked into your office and asks you whether you intend to
have a party for Dave. A.How would you respond? B.What
is the potential impact of your response? C.If you choose
not to respond, what is the potential impact of your behavior?
SCENARIO 2 You have an open position for a supervisor, and
your top two candidates are an African-American female and a
white female. Both candidates are equally qualified. The
position is responsible for five white team leaders. You hire the
white female because the work group likes her. The team
leaders said that they felt more comfortable with the white
female. The vice president of human resources has just called
you on the phone and asks you to explain why you hired the
white female. Page 143 A.How would you respond? B.What
is the potential impact of not hiring the African American?
C.What is the potential impact of hiring the African American?
SCENARIO 3 While attending an off-site business meeting, you
are waiting in line with a group of team leaders to get your
lunch at a buffet. Without any forewarning, one of your peers in
the line loudly says, “Thank goodness Terry is at the end of the
line. With his size and appetite there wouldn’t be any food left
for the rest of us.” You believe Terry may have heard this
comment, and you feel the comment was more of a “weight-
related” slur than a joke. A.How would you respond?
B.What is the potential impact of your response? C.If you
choose not to respond, what is the potential impact of your

behavior? Questions for Discussion 1.What was the
recommended response for each scenario? 2.Which scenario
generated the most emotion and disagreement? Explain why this
occurred. 3.What is the potential impact of a manager’s lack of
response to Scenarios 1 and 3? Explain.
When you discuss individual differences among your friends,
you might start by talking about your presonalities, or skills and
abilities. We’ll do the same. In the chapter that follows we will
discuss these and other differences. We will also discuss
emotions, which we consider a key individual level process in
response to personal and environmental inputs. By the end of
the chapter you will have a much greater understanding of how
individual differences and emotions affect a host of outcomes at
the individual and group levels of OB. You also will learn some
practical tips on how to use this knowledge to improve your
success at school, at work, and in your larger life. Page 73
winning at work TO START FAST AND START RIGHT, BE
PROACTIVE IN YOUR FIRST 30 DAYS Shannon Deegan,
director of People Operations at Google, said: “We tell
employees, ‘You own your career.’ . . . If an employee loves
part of a job yet wanted to do it on a different team, ‘it’s cool,’
he says.”1 This is a loud endorsement for proactivity at work.
And while you may never work for Google, you can still benefit
from his advice. Being proactive is a benefit in many arenas of
life and can be especially beneficial when starting a new job.
Don’t count on your employer to do all the work in the early
stages, or onboarding process, of a new job. We’ve listed seven
recommendations to help you start fast and start right.
SOURCE: From Jennifer King, “6 Things New Hires Should Do
in the First 30 Days,” SoftwareAdvice.com,
http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/new-hire-check-list-
1071312/. Reprinted with permission. 1.Come Up with Your
Elevator Pitch. You only get one chance to make a first
impression. So, before you start introducing yourself to
everyone, figure out what you’re going to say when you meet

them. 2.Understand Your Role and How You’ll Be Evaluated.
The responsibilities of the job you were hired for could change
by the time you start work. Reach out to your manager about
what may have changed and make sure you have a clear
understanding of your current role, responsibilities, and
authority before you take on any projects. 3.Learn the Business.
Before you can begin to contribute to an organization, you need
to figure out how the company works. How does your company
do business? What are its objectives? 4.Interview Your Boss.
The key to being a successful new employee is helping your
boss be successful. Find out what keeps your boss up at night
and come up with creative ways to alleviate those worries. 5.Be
Ambitious, but Have Restraint. You might be eager to start
contributing right away and fixing everything you see wrong
with the organization. That intention is good, but tread lightly.
As a new hire you won’t have the historical context about why a
policy or process may or may not need fixing. 6.Be Proactive
about Your Onboarding. One day of orientation and a meet and
greet with your team may be the extent of your company’s
onboarding program. If so, be proactive with your managers
about their training plan and what you need to accomplish in
your first three months on the job.2 7.Problem Solve. When
problems arise, or seem likely, proactive people take action—
they don’t wait to be asked. Such characteristics are even more
important given that 38 percent of companies reported doing
three days or less of onboarding or orienting new employees, 54
percent did little or no follow-up, and 67 percent collected little
to no feedback from new employees.3 The lesson: you are often
on your own! But proactivity continues to yield benefits. A
study showed that the three most common traits of successful
CEOs are persistence, efficiency, and proactivity.4 Proactive
people also tend to have more career success (as measured by
promotions and raises), innovation, creativity, and
entrepreneurship.5 FOR YOUWHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS
CHAPTER You’ll explore individual differences (IDs), which
are the many attributes that distinguish all of us from one

another. Understanding IDs is critical to the effective
application of OB knowledge and tools. This is why we
introduce IDs early in the book as an input in the Integrative
Framework of OB. A more thorough understanding of IDs will
help you manage these differences for your job and career
success. For managers, recognition of such differences is
fundamental to attracting, motivating, retaining, and improving
the performance of others. Your exploration of IDs begins with
an explanation of the relative stability of these differences.
Next, you’ll delve into a subset of individual differences found
to be particularly important in the work context and supported
by research: (1) intelligence, (2) cognitive abilities, (3)
personality, (4) core self-evaluations, (5) attitudes (covered in
Chapter 2), and (6) emotions (including emotional intelligence).
Knowledge of IDs enables you to more effectively solve
problems and manage individual, group, and organizational
outcomes at school, work, and home. Page 74 3.1THE
DIFFERENCES MATTER MAJOR QUESTION How does
understanding the relative stability of individual differences
benefit me? THE BIGGER PICTURE You undoubtedly notice
changes in your friends’ behaviors when they are in different
situations (in class vs. a tailgating party) or circumstances
(cramming for an exam or coping with a new job). However,
what you probably don’t pay much attention to are the
characteristics and behaviors that don’t change. To help you
understand and use this knowledge, you’ll see that we arrange
many individual attributes on a continuum of their relative
stability. At one extreme are relatively fixed traits (like
intelligence), and at the other extreme are more flexible states
(like emotions), with various trait-like and state-like
characteristics in between. A sharper understanding of
individual differences in this spot will help you manage these
differences for your job and career success. For managers,
recognition of such differences is fundamental to attracting,
motivating, retaining, and improving the performance of others.
Individual differences (IDs) is a broad category used to

collectively describe the vast number of attributes (for example,
traits and behaviors) that describe you as a person. So what is it
that makes us different? Is it our genetics or our environment?
The answer is both. And while how you are raised, along with
your experiences and opportunities, indeed helps shape who you
are, a large volume of research on twins suggests that genetics
matter more. But what is more important at work is recognizing
the many attributes that make us who were are, regardless of
whether these characteristics are due to genetics or how we are
raised. Like the importance of dealing with diversity discussed
in Chapter 2, effective employees and managers must
understand and utilize the many individual differences
possessed by those with whom we work. IDs therefore are
fundamental to OB and your personal success at work, school,
and the other arenas of your life. To help you understand and
apply knowledge about IDs, we organize and discuss them
according to Figure 3.1. On the left-hand side of Figure 3.1
you’ll notice that we arrange individual differences on a
continuum from top to bottom. At the top are intelligence and
mental abilities, which are relatively fixed. This means they are
stable over time and across situations and difficult to change.
At the bottom are attitudes (which we discussed in Chapter 2)
and emotions, which are relatively flexible. Emotions change
over time, from situation to situation, and can be altered more
easily. The right-hand side of the figure previews some of the
workplace outcomes we will encounter in the chapter. The
distinction between relatively fixed and flexible individual
differences has great practical value for managers. Wise
managers know they have little or no impact on fixed IDs. You
can’t change an employee’s level of intelligence or remake an
employee’s personality.6 But you can help employees manage
their attitudes and emotions. For instance, many effective
managers (and their employers) select employees based on
positive, job-relevant, but relatively stable IDs. This enables
managers to capitalize on the personal strengths that someone
brings to a job because these stable strengths affect behavior

and performance in most every work situation.7 Intelligence and
analytical abilities, for example, are beneficial in front of
customers, in teams with coworkers, and working alone on a
project. Page 75 FIGURE 3.1RELATIVE STABILITY OF
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES In contrast, managers have more
influence on relatively flexible IDs that influence individual-
level work outcomes. This implies that managers are more
likely to influence individual-level work outcomes, like
performance and job satisfaction, by implementing different
policies and practices that positively impact employees’ core
self-evaluations, attitudes, and emotions. For example, as a
manager you’d likely be better off assigning employees who are
open to experience (a dimensions of the Big Five personality
framework you’ll learn about later in this chapter) to jobs
involving new products and new markets than employees with
low levels of this attribute. Similarly, you could help build new
employees’ self-efficacy (another ID you’ll learn about) for
selling to tough customers if you role model how to do this
effectively, give them experience presenting to “easy
customers” first, and give them verbal encouragement before
and constructive feedback after. You will explore a number of
related OB theories, concepts, and tools in Chapters 6
(performance management), 10 (conflict and negotiation), and
12 (power and influence) that you can use for this purpose. Page
76 3.2INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY
THAN IQ MAJOR QUESTION How do multiple intelligences
affect my performance? THE BIGGER PICTURE You may be
smarter than you think you are. You may already know your IQ,
and your grades may also reflect intellectual intelligence. But
you can be intelligent in other ways too. We explain various
forms of intelligence because all are inputs to the Integrative
Framework and affect your performance. Although experts do
not agree on a specific definition, many say intelligence
represents an individual’s capacity for constructive thinking,
reasoning, and problem solving. Most people think of
intelligence in terms of intelligence quotient or IQ, the famous

score from tests taken as a child. Thus many people typically
view intelligence and IQ as one, big attribute of brainpower.
However, intelligence, intelligence testing (IQ), and related
research are more complex. The concept of intelligence has
expanded over the years and more often is thought of and
discussed in terms of general mental abilities. Of course, people
are different in terms of such abilities, but this isn’t what is
important at work. What is important is to understand
intelligence or mental abilities so you can manage people more
effectively. Put another way, the reason we highlight
intelligence and mental abilities is because they are related to
performance.8 This section provides a brief overview of
intelligence and mental abilities and then highlights practical
implications. Intelligence Matters . . . And We Have More Than
We Think Do you agree with the definition of intelligence
above? Historically, intelligence was believed to be purely
genetic—something passed from one generation to another—
you’re either born “smart” or you’re not. Do you agree with this
belief? What are the implications of believing that intelligence
is a gift of birth? Regardless of your personal views, research
has shown that intelligence, like personality, can be altered or
modified in a number of ways.9 Think about it. No matter who
you are or your starting point (e.g., education or experience), if
you engage in more constructive thinking, reasoning, and
problem solving, you will get better at these. You’ll be more
intelligent. If you buy this argument, then after reading this
book and studying OB you’ll be more intelligent due to
practicing critical thinking and problem solving. (As the
authors, we’d certainly like to think so.) Unfortunately,
however, research in children also shows that this is a two-way
street. Your intellectual development can also be damaged or
diminished by organic factors, such as drugs, alcohol, and poor
nutrition.10 Do I Think I’m More Intelligent Than My
Parents?If you answer, yes, to this question, then research might
just support such a claim. A steady and significant rise in
average intelligence among those in developed countries has

been observed over the last 70 years. Why? Experts at an
American Psychological Association conference concluded,
“Some combination of better schooling, improved
socioeconomic status, healthier nutrition, and a more
technologically complex society might account for the gains in
IQ scores.”11 So, if you think you’re smarter than your parents
and your teachers, despite them saying you don’t know
important facts that they do, then you’re probably right! Page
77 Dr. Evangelo Katsioulis reportedly has an IQ of 198—the
highest in the world. He is a Greek psychiatrist and has degrees
in philosophy, psychopharmacology, and research technology.
Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson’s is 160, the same
as physicist Stephen Hawking and movie director Quentin
Tarantino. People who score less than 70 are identified as
intellectually disabled; over 130, gifted; and over 165, genius.
Two-thirds of people score in the normal range of 85–115.
Multiple Intelligences (MI)While many people think of
intelligence in general terms, such as IQ, it is more common and
practical to think in terms of multiple intelligences or
intelligence for something specific. Howard Gardner, a
professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education,
investigated this issue for years and summarized his findings in
his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
Intelligences.12 The eight different intelligences he identified
include not only mental abilities but social and physical
abilities and skills as well. See Table 3.1. Practical
IntelligenceWe can draw practical benefits from Gardner’s
notion of multiple intelligences. For instance, Yale’s Robert J.
Sternberg applied Gardner’s “naturalist intelligence” to the
domain of leadership under the heading practical intelligence.
He explains: “Practical intelligence is the ability to solve
everyday problems by utilizing knowledge gained from
experience in order to purposefully adapt to, shape, and select
environments. It thus involves changing oneself to suit the
environment (adaptation), changing the environment to suit
oneself (shaping), or finding a new environment within which to

work (selection). One uses these skills to (a) manage oneself,
(b) manage others, and (c) manage tasks.”13 Page 78 TABLE
3.1GARDNER’S EIGHT INTELLIGENCES TYPE OF
INTELLIGENCE EXAMPLE Linguistic intelligence:
potential to learn and use spoken and written languages. If you
are European, or at least traveled to Europe, then you could
argue that the multilingual people born and raised there have
developed much higher levels of linguistic intelligence than
most people born and raised in the United States. The same
holds true for parts of Africa and Asia and other pockets of the
world. Logical-mathematical intelligence: potential for
deductive reasoning, problem analysis, and mathematical
calculation. Did this intelligence help or hurt you on your
college entrance exam? Musical intelligence: potential to
appreciate, compose, and perform music. Do you play the
guitar? Have you heard Tony MacAlpine? He is widely
considered to be a guitar virtuoso. If you were to measure this
form of intelligence, then his musical intelligence score is
likely high. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: potential to use
mind and body to coordinate physical movement. LeBron
James, besides being in the top 1% in terms of height, clearly
has masterful control of his body compared to most any athlete,
any size, any sport, and any level. Spatial intelligence: potential
to recognize and use patterns. Fighter pilots are excellent
examples. Interpersonal intelligence: potential to understand,
connect with, and effectively work with others. Compare
Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) to Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle).
Critics see the first as approachable and friendly, the second as
arrogant. Intrapersonal intelligence: potential to understand and
regulate oneself. Any president of the United States. It
requires incredible self-awareness and control to endure the
constant criticism. Naturalist intelligence: potential to live in
harmony with one’s environment. The Dali Lama comes to
mind. But for people more mainstream, John Mackey of Whole
Foods and the late Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc. epitomize
this form of intelligence. Others believe the concept of multiple

intelligences has important implications for employee selection,
training, and performance. The implication is that one-size-fits-
all training programs fall short when diversity of intelligences
is taken into consideration. Near the end of this chapter, you
will encounter the concept of emotional intelligence, which can
be used for selection and other purposes. We look forward to
breakthroughs in this area as the field of multiple intelligences
attracts more OB researchers and practicing managers. TAKE-
AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP Using the list of Intelligences
In Table 3.1 and discussed above, 1.Which do you think are
your strongest? Weakest? 2.Which do you think are most
important for this course? Your current, last, and most desired
jobs? 3.Which do you think are least important? 4.Describe how
you could use this knowledge to improve your performance in
this class (and your job if you’re working). Page 79 Practical
Implications Many people (e.g., educators and parents) have
embraced multiple intelligences because it helps explain how a
child could score poorly on a standard IQ test yet be obviously
gifted in one or more ways (e.g., music, sports, or relationship
building). It then follows that the concept of multiple
intelligences underscores the need to help each child develop in
his or her own unique way and at his or her own pace. Many
people make the same arguments about college students and
employees. Of course, everybody has strengths and weaknesses.
But practically what is important is to identify intelligences
relevant to the job, and then select, place, and develop
individuals accordingly. What is your view? Do you see any
value in intelligence tests at work? Why or why not? Not Just
Kid StuffThe interest in improving intelligence now goes far
beyond children and child development. Recently, companies
such as Lumosity, Cogmed, and even Nintendo have touted and
profited from the idea that adult intelligence can be increased.
Either through games or training, subjects and customers have
been shown to improve scores on IQ and other related tests. One
piece of evidence to support their case is a study that showed a
six-point boost on an IQ test. Researchers, however, recommend

caution. They note that intelligence is still largely a fixed trait,
and that improvements are modest and typically the result of
intensive, long-term interventions. Psychology professor David
Hambrick of Michigan State University put it this way:
“Demonstrating that subjects are better on one reasoning test
after cognitive training doesn’t establish that they are smarter.
It merely establishes that they’re better on one reasoning
test.”14 This seems to suggest that “pure intellectual heft is like
someone who can bench-press a thousand pounds. But so what,
if you don’t know what to do with it?”15 Some
Proof?Regardless of your personal view on the practical value
of intelligence at school or work, the following Example box
offers a couple compelling endorsements for the importance of
mental abilities and IQ. EXAMPLESmarts and Money
Intelligence in its various forms is important because of its link
to performance. For example, a study of stock traders in Finland
revealed that those with high IQs are more likely to: (1) sell
losing stocks, (2) engage in tax-loss selling, and (3) hold stocks
at 30-day highs—all desirable. Performance also was better than
that for their low IQ counterparts, by as much as 2.2 percent per
year.16 NFL—INTELLIGENCE TESTING?Yes, not only does
the National Football League have an employment test for
players, but they’ve been using one since the 1970s! This began
with the Dallas Cowboys using the popular Wonderlic test (50
questions with a 12-minute time limit). Now, many teams have
developed and used their own. The belief is that test scores will
help identify players who will get along with teammates, those
who will make it to meetings on time, and how best to teach
them the playbook (e.g., in written form, visual aids, or on-the-
field demonstration).17 BE SMART AND PROTECT YOUR
INVESTMENTSBoth financial advisors and professional
football teams make multimillion-dollar investments—the
former in stocks and the latter in football players. It seems that
powerful people in both industries believe that intelligence
matters. YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.When interviewing financial
advisors, would you compare IQs? If you were the coach, GM,

or owner of a professional sports team, would you use
intelligence testing? In each case, why or why not? 2.If you
were a hiring manager for your company, how much weight
would you give intellectual intelligence? 3.Would you require
an IQ test? Explain your answers. Page 80 3.3PERSONALITY,
OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS MAJOR QUESTION How
does my personality affect my performance? THE BIGGER
PICTURE You probably feel you know yourself better than
anyone else, but you’re about to learn some tools to help you
see how others see you. One such tool is the Big Five
personality profile, which summarizes hundreds of personality
traits into five categories. Another useful approach centers on
proactivity. These tools will help you understand how you may
be seen by others and understand the managerial implications of
these characteristics. We explore these topics because
personality is a fundamental driver of your behavior and
performance at work, and it is an important input in the
Integrative Framework of OB. Personality is defined as the
combination of stable physical, behavioral, and mental
characteristics that give individuals their unique identities.
These characteristics or traits—including how one looks, thinks,
acts, and feels—are the product of interacting genetic and
environmental influences and are stable over time and across
situations and cultures.18 Personality is a person input in the
Integrative Framework. There Is More to Personality Than
Liking and Fit You, like most people, may often think of
personality in general “like/dislike” terms. For instance, if
you’re asked to describe your professor for this class you might
say: “She is great. I love her personality.” Or, if asked to
describe your boss you might say: “He is a horrible individual,
he is unethical, many of his colleagues won’t associate with
him, and he is widely disrespected and should be fired.” Or if
you are recruiting somebody for a job (or your
fraternity/sorority) you might say: “I really like his/her
personality . . . I think he/she will fit in great with the rest of
us.” What Can I Do with “Like”?While “liking” and “fit”

matter, these general and evaluative types of descriptions aren’t
very useful from a management standpoint. To be more specific,
assume you are a manager at a company or an officer in a
fraternity or sorority and are planning to recruit new employees
or pledges. If you only think of personality in terms of (dis)like
and fit, what type of guidance would you give to your
recruiters? “Go find people you like and be sure they fit.”
Again, liking and fit of coworkers (or pledges) matter, but these
are too general and too varied from one recruiter to the next.
Moreover, because you like somebody doesn’t mean you should
hire that person, that he or she will perform well, or that he or
she will be a good person to add to your house. Page 81 Jeff
Bezos (top) and Steve Jobs (bottom) were ranked #1 and #2 top
performing CEOs by Harvard Business Review. Jobs was not
known to be especially likeable, whereas Bezos is seen as
relatively friendly, down to earth, and approachable. The
lesson—don’t make too much of “likeable” personalities. If you
started a company, you’d likely be delighted to have either
Bezos or Jobs work for you! Be Precise to Be EffectiveThe
challenge of being precise is part of what has motivated a
tremendous amount of research in psychology and OB regarding
personality. In other words, to be effective at managing people
you need to be more precise and specific (and scientific) about
personality. As with other IDs discussed in this chapter and
throughout the book, what is needed are more precise
definitions of what personality is and is not, how to measure it,
and what effect it has on important processes and outcomes
across levels of the Integrative Framework. The Big Five
Personality Dimensions To meet this need, psychologists and
researchers have distilled long and confusing lists of personality
dimensions into what they call the Big Five Personality
Dimensions. These are five basic dimensions that simplify more
complex models of personality: extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to
experience.19 See Table 3.2. For example, someone scoring
high on extraversion would be an extrovert, that is, outgoing,

talkative, sociable, and assertive. Someone scoring low on
emotional stability would tend to be nervous, tense, angry, and
worried. A person’s scores on the Big Five reveal a personality
profile as unique as his or her fingerprints. Complete Self-
Assessment 3.1 to discover your own Big Five profile. In the
process you’ll learn that there is more to personality than just
being likeable or fitting in. This Self-Assessment will increase
your self-awareness and illustrate some of the concepts we just
described. Moreover, many companies use personality profiles
for hiring and promotions. Your profile should provide some
practical insights. TABLE 3.2CHARACTERISTICS OF
PERSONS SCORING HIGH ON THE FIVE DIMENSIONS The
Big Five Personality Dimensions Personality Dimension 1.
Extraversion Outgoing, talkative, sociable, assertive 2.
Agreeableness Trusting, good-natured, cooperative, softhearted
3. Conscientiousness Dependable, responsible, achievement
oriented, persistent 4. Emotional stability Relaxed, secure,
unworried 5. Openness to experience Intellectual, imaginative,
curious, broad-minded SOURCE: Adapted from M. R. Barrick
and M. K. Mount, “Autonomy as a Moderator of the
Relationships between the Big Five Personality Dimensions and
Job Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, February
1993, 111–118. Page 82 SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.1What Is My
Big Five Personality Profile? Go to connect.mheducation.com
and take Self-Assessment 3.1 to learn your Big Five personality
profile. Then answer the questions below. 1.What are your
reactions? Do you agree with the scores on your Big Five
profile? 2.Which dimension(s) is (are) your highest? In which
situations would this be most beneficial? 3.Which one or two
dimensions do you think are likely the best predictor of
managerial success? Which is the least? Explain. 4.Given your
profile, describe the implications for working in teams at school
and/or work. But one important question lingers: Are
personality models unique to the culture in which they were
developed? At least as far as the Big Five model goes, cross-
cultural research evidence points in the direction of “no.”

Specifically, the Big Five personality structure held up very
well in a study of women and men from Russia, Canada, Hong
Kong, Poland, Germany, and Finland.20 A comprehensive
analysis of Big Five studies revealed: “To date, there is no
compelling evidence that culture affects personality
structure.”21 Proactive Personality A proactive personality is
“someone who is relatively unconstrained by situational forces
and who affects environmental change. Proactive people
identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take
action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.”22 In
short, people with proactive personalities are “hardwired” to
change the status quo. It therefore is no surprise that this
particular individual difference has received growing attention
from both researchers and managers. Think about it. Companies,
and their managers, routinely say they want employees who take
initiative and are adaptable. Many argue that today’s
hypercompetitive and fast-changing workplace requires such
characteristics. In support of these desired traits, research
shows that those with proactive personalities positively
influence many of the work outcomes shown in Figure 3.1 (and
later in Figure 3.4). For example, proactivity is related to
increased performance, satisfaction, affective organizational
commitment (genuine desire to remain a member of an
organization), and social networking.23 Proactive
ManagersWhat about your manager? Interesting recent work
showed that the ideal scenario is for both you and your manager
to be proactive. This results in a better fit and relationship
between the two of you, and it also increases your level of job
performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment.24 It
also is important to know that the same study showed that the
worst scenario in terms of performance was low proactivity for
both you and your manager, followed by a highly proactive
manager and a low proactivity follower. Thus proactivity is a
highly valued characteristic in the eyes of employers. And being
proactive has direct and indirect (via your manager) benefits for
your performance. Given these facts, how proactive do you see

yourself? How might you increase your proactivity? To help
answer these questions, learn about your own proactivity, and
explore some of potential benefits for you, complete Self-
Assessment 3.2. Page 83 SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.2How
Proactive Am I? Go to connect.mheducation.com and complete
Self-Assessment 3.2. Compare your perceptions with your
score, then answer the questions below. This knowledge can
help you better understand and “sell” yourself in job interviews
and at work. 1.Do you see a pattern between the questions on
which you scored the highest? Lowest? 2.On those you scored
the highest, what are the implications for your success in
school? In other words, how can these aspects of your
proactivity help you? 3.How can knowledge of your proactive
personality score help you when you look for a job? Be specific.
Proactivity and EntrepreneursSuccessful entrepreneurs often
exemplify the proactive personality. Consider Rachel Coleman,
who founded Two Little Hands Productions after discovering
that her baby daughter was severely hearing impaired. Her
company produces DVDs that teach American Sign Language to
children. When Coleman learned of her daughter’s disability,
she abandoned her career as a singer/songwriter, taught herself
to sign, and began teaching children at local preschools. She
and her sister made their first video just to teach others, but
when the Today Show inquired, Coleman saw an opportunity
and started building a business.25 Sal Khan’s Khan Academy,
now world famous, provides Internet-based learning for nearly
every scholastic subject under the sun. Here’s how it started.
Khan, who has three graduate degrees, offered to help his
cousin with one of her classes via the Internet. She learned, the
word spread, and a company was born. Khan Academy now
provides more than 4,000 different subject tutorials for free and
has presented more than 240 million lessons.26 Some other
fascinating statistics, shown in Table 3.3, highlight other
notable individual differences of entrepreneurs. How do you
match up? TABLE 3.3TAKING THE MEASURE OF
ENTREPRENEURS 40 Average and median age 95.1%

Have bachelor’s degrees 47% Have advanced degrees
71.5% Come from middle-class backgrounds <1% Come
from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds 70%Used
own savings as major source of funding 42.5% Were
firstborn 3.1 Average number of siblings 51.9% First in
family to start a business 69.9% Married when they launched
first business 59.7% Had at least one child 73% Think luck
is an important factor in the success of their venture SOURCE:
“By the Numbers: Taking the Measure of Entrepreneurs,” The
Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2012. Page 84 In Table 3.3,
it is worth noting that these are only averages, and if you do not
possess these qualities you still can succeed as an entrepreneur.
To help make this point, let’s explore the link between
personality and performance. Personality and Performance
Instead of simply assuming personality affects performance,
let’s see what research has to say and how this can make you
more effective. Let’s begin with the Big Five, as knowledge of
these stable personality dimensions could assist in selecting the
right people and assigning them responsibilities that will set
them up to win. To this end, a study involving more than 20,000
employees from many professions showed that
conscientiousness had the strongest (most positive) effects on
job performance and training performance. According to the
researchers, “those individuals who exhibit traits associated
with a strong sense of purpose, obligation, and persistence
generally perform better than those who do not.” They also tend
to have higher job satisfaction.27 Another expected finding:
Extraversion (an outgoing personality) was associated with
success for managers and salespeople. Extraversion also was a
stronger predictor of job performance than agreeableness,
across all professions. The researchers concluded, “It appears
that being courteous, trusting, straightforward, and softhearted
has a smaller impact on job performance than being talkative,
active, and assertive.”28 Besides increases in job performance,
job satisfaction, and affective commitment (as discussed in
Chapter 2), proactive personality also is linked to intentions to

be entrepreneurial. This really should not be surprising, but it is
helpful to know that scientific OB research substantiates this
belief. Building on this, employees with proactive personalities
are more likely to be more engaged (again, see Chapter 2) and
creative at work.29 Mr. Ambani is India’s richest man with
much of his fortune coming from oil and gas. He is social, he
and his wife throw extravagant parties, but at the same time
he’s reclusive. He did his first interview in more than a decade
in early 2013 with Fareed Zakaria. Page 85 Personality Testing
at Work Personality testing as a tool for making decisions about
hiring, training, and promotion is commonplace. A recent study
by the Aberdeen Group, a human capital market research firm,
found 53 percent of companies use some form of pre- and post-
hiring assessments. Many of these are personality-type tests.
According to the same study, 86 percent of “best in class”
companies used assessments in the pre-hire stage.30 However,
despite their widespread use, a panel of industrial-
organizational psychologists concluded that the typical
personality test is not a valid predictor of job performance.31
One reason might be that many test-takers don’t describe
themselves accurately but instead try to guess what answers the
employer is looking for. Another reason for the dismal results is
that such tests are typically bought off the shelf and often given
indiscriminately by people who aren’t trained or qualified. And
while rigorous research shows that personality actually is
related to performance, the effects are small. Moreover, and
more importantly perhaps, the fact is that personality tests are
designed to measure personality, not what individual
differences are needed to perform at a high level in a particular
job. This means that managers need different and better ways to
measure personality if they want to select employees based on
performance-conducive personality traits. Managers are
therefore wise to learn about personality and tools used to
measure it before investing in and/or utilizing the data from
such tests. Table 3.4 provides some insights. TABLE
3.4ADVICE AND WORDS OF CAUTION ABOUT

PERSONALITY TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE Researchers,
test developers, and organizations that administer personality
assessments offer the following suggestions for getting started
with testing or for evaluating whether tests already in use are
appropriate for forecasting job performance: •Determine what
you hope to accomplish. If you are looking to find the best fit
between a job and applicant, analyze the aspects of the position
that are most critical for it. •Look for outside help to determine
if a test exists or can be developed to screen applicants for the
traits that best fit the position. Industrial psychologists,
professional organizations, and a number of Internet sites
provide resources. •Insist that any test recommended by a
consultant or vendor be validated scientifically for the specific
purpose that you have defined. Vendors should be able to cite
some independent, credible research supporting a test’s
correlation with job performance. •Ask the test provider to
document the legal basis for any assessment: Is it fair? Is it job-
related? Is it biased against any racial or ethnic group? Does it
violate an applicant’s right to privacy under state or federal
laws? Get legal advice to assure that a test does not adversely
affect any protected class. •Make sure that every staff member
who will be administering tests or analyzing results is educated
about how to do so properly and keeps results confidential. Use
the scores on personality tests with other factors you believe are
important to the job—such as skills and experience—to create a
comprehensive evaluation of the merits of each candidate, and
apply those criteria identically to each applicant. SOURCE:
From S. Bates, “Personality Counts,” HR Magazine, February
2002, 34. Reprinted with permission of the Society for Human
Resource Management (www.shrm.org), Alexandria, VA,
publisher of HR Magazine.© SHRM. There Is No “Ideal
Employee” Personality Given the complexity of today’s work
environments, the diversity of today’s workforce, and recent
research evidence, the quest for an ideal employee personality
profile is sheer folly. Just as one shoe does not fit all people,
one personality profile does not fit all job situations. Good

management involves taking the time to get to know each
employee’s unique combination of personality traits, abilities,
and potential and then creating a productive and satisfying
person-job fit. In other words, a contingency approach to
managing people is best (recall the discussion of contingency in
Chapter 1). Page 86 3.4CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW
MY SELF-EFFICACY, SELF-ESTEEM, LOCUS OF
CONTROL, AND EMOTIONAL STABILITY AFFECT MY
PERFORMANCE MAJOR QUESTION How do self-evaluations
affect my performance at work? THE BIGGER PICTURE You
can significantly improve your self-awareness by understanding
your core self-evaluations (CSEs). Such self-evaluations
provide broad and useful ways to describe personality that
comprise specific individual differences of self-efficacy, self-
esteem, locus of control, and emotional stability. CSEs and their
component dimensions are more flexible than IQ but more
stable than emotions. Your knowledge of CSEs can improve
your performance at work, throughout your career, and in your
larger life space. So far we’ve discussed both general and more
narrow or specific individual differences (e.g., multiple
intelligences). Knowledge and use of both general and specific
approaches have benefits. A narrow concepts perspective
enables you to more precisely describe individuals. Think about
it: describing somebody in terms of musical intelligence or
extraversion is more specific than using one’s general
personality. To illustrate, a narrow concepts approach would
conclude that it is more insightful to say that Steve Vai, a
phenomenal progressive rock guitarist and favorite of one of
your authors, has incredible musical intelligence than to say
that he is intelligent. In contrast, using a broader perspective
can enable you to more effectively predict behavior—“the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The rationale is that
broader concepts provide a more comprehensive and practical
account of an individual’s behavior.32 However, part of Vai’s
guitar-playing prowess likely is due to other factors beyond his
musical intelligence. While there is no clear answer regarding

the accuracy of these two approaches, researchers have
identified a broad or general personality concept that has
significant relationships with a host of individual-level work
outcomes included in Figure 3.1 and the Integrative Framework.
It is called core self-evaluations (CSEs). Steve Vai studied with
Joe Satriani and attended the renowned Berklee College of
Music in Boston. Early in his career he transcribed music and
played for the legendary musician Frank Zappa. He is widely
considered a virtuoso and would be expected to score very
highly on musical intelligence. What other intelligences might
influence his guitar playing, composing, and song writing?
People with high core self-evaluations see themselves as
capable and effective. Core self-evaluations (CSEs) represent a
broad personality trait comprised of four narrower and positive
individual traits: (1) generalized self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem,
(3) locus of control, and (4) emotional stability. (See Figure
3.2.) This section discusses these component traits and
highlights research and managerial implication for each
separately. This is done because it is necessary to understand
the component traits to comprehend CSEs and to fully
appreciate the practical value. We conclude by comparing what
we know about these individual traits with what research
reveals about combining them into the broad concept of CSE.
Page 87 FIGURE 3.2THE CORE SELF-EVALUATION AND
ITS COMPONENTS Why should you care about CSEs? CSEs
have desirable effects on outcomes such as increased job
performance, job and life satisfaction, motivation,
organizational citizenship behaviors, and better adjustment to
international assignments.33 They are related to reduced
conflict (Chapter 10) and lower stress (Chapter 16). CSEs also
have been studied in the executive suite. A study of 129 CEOs
and top management teams showed that CEOs with high core
self-evaluations had a positive influence on their organization’s
drive to take risks, innovate, and seek new opportunities. This
effect was especially strong in dynamic business
environments.34 Now let’s explore the component dimensions.

Self-Efficacy—”I Can Do That” Have you noticed how those
who are confident about their ability tend to succeed, while
those who are preoccupied with failing tend to fail? At the heart
of such performance differences is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is
a person’s belief about his or her chances of successfully
accomplishing a specific task. Self-efficacy can be developed.
Helpful nudges in the right direction from parents, role models,
and mentors are central to the development of high self-
efficacy. For example, a study of medical residents showed that
guidance and social support from their mentors improved the
resident’s clinical self-efficacy.35 Sara Blakely, the founder of
Spanx, epitomizes self-efficacy. Not only is she the youngest
self-made female billionaire, but her path to the top contained
more failures than successes. She failed to get into law school,
worked at Disney World, did stand-up comedy, and sold fax
machines all before designing, making, and selling her modern
and fashionable girdles out of her apartment and car. Think of
some of your own “failures” and how you responded. How did
this build your efficacy? Mechanisms of Self-EfficacyA detailed
model of self-efficacy is shown in Figure 3.3. To apply this
model, imagine you have been told to prepare and deliver a 10-
minute talk to an OB class of 50 students on how to build self-
efficacy. Part of your self-efficacy calculation would involve
evaluating interaction between your personal capabilities and
environmental characteristics, just as described in the
Integrative Framework. Page 88 FIGURE 3.3SELF-EFFICACY
PAVES THE WAY FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE SOURCES:
Adapted from discussion in A. Bandura, “Regulation of
Cognitive Processes through Perceived Self-Efficacy,”
Developmental Psychology, September 1989, 729–735, and R.
Wood and A. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory of
Organizational Management,” Academy of Management
Review, July 1989, 361–84. On the left-hand side of Figure 3.3,
among the sources of self-efficacy beliefs, prior experience
takes first position as the most potent of the four sources. This
is why it connects to self-efficacy beliefs with a solid line. Past

success in public speaking would boost your self-efficacy and
bad experiences would diminish it. Other sources (behavior
models, persuasion from others, and physical and emotional
factors) might also affect your self-confidence. As weaker
sources, they connect to beliefs with dashed lines in the figure.
Your evaluation of the situation then would yield a self-efficacy
belief—ranging from high to low expectations for success.
Importantly, self-efficacy beliefs are not mere bravado; they are
deep convictions supported by experience. Moving to the
behavioral patterns right-hand portion of Figure 3.3, we see how
self-efficacy beliefs are acted out. In short, if you have high
self-efficacy about giving your 10-minute speech, you will work
harder, more creatively, and longer when preparing for your talk
than would a low-self-efficacy classmate. Better performance
would follow. People program themselves for success or failure
by enacting their self-efficacy expectations. Positive or negative
results subsequently become feedback for one’s base of personal
experience and future self-efficacy. Page 89 solving application
How Can I See My Own Blind Spots to Build Efficacy and
Effectiveness? A recent report on first-time leaders showed that
89 percent have blind spots, or areas in which they think they
are capable but are not. There are many reasons for such
disconnects, such as promoting technical experts who do not
have management skill-sets, lack of training and preparation for
managerial roles, and insufficient feedback to help reveal blind
spots. All of the blind spots noted in this study are OB topics
covered in this book. A first step toward seeing your own blind
spots would be to reflect on those that are most common. Here
are the three most common for technical experts who were
recently promoted: 1.Guiding Interactions. Eighty-eight percent
were “blind” in this area, which includes influencing meetings,
conversations, and other communications in a productive
manner to achieve objectives. 2.Coaching for Improvement.
Sixty-nine percent were deficient in confronting and solving
performance problems and developing others. These are skills
that many organizations rarely practice, train, or develop.

3.Delegation. Sixty-eight percent are reluctant to let go of these
responsibilities. Other common blind spots are problem solving
(34%) and influencing others (27%). The first was covered in
Chapter 1 and the latter will be in Chapter 12. Whatever the
case, blind spots set new leaders up to fail. To avoid this, you
are urged to identify and “unveil” your blind spots. Beyond
considering those that are generally common, you can complete
the Self-Assessments throughout this book.36 Another way is to
seek feedback, a process that we discuss in detail in Chapter 6.
YOUR CALL Stop 1:Review your Self-Assessments to date, and
if you currently work, then consider soliciting feedback from
coworkers to help identify any of your blind spots. Be sure to
consider the common blind spots noted above. Then decide,
what are two of your biggest blind spots? Stop 2:Which OB
concepts help you explain these blind spots? Stop 3:How could
you increase your efficacy in each? Be specific and use Figure
3.3 to help. Managerial ImplicationsSelf-efficacy has been
extensively studied in the workplace. The data support a number
of recommendations. As a general rule, managers are
encouraged to nurture self-efficacy in themselves and in others
because it is related to improved job performance and job
satisfaction (both are important individual-level outcomes). See
Table 3.5 for more examples. Self-Esteem—“Look in the
Mirror” Self-esteem is your general belief about your own self-
worth. Personal achievements and praise tend to bolster one’s
self-esteem, while prolonged unemployment and destructive
feedback tend to erode it. Self-esteem is measured by having
people indicate their agreement or disagreement with both
positive and negative statements about themselves. An example
of a positive statement is, “I feel I am a person of worth, the
equal of other people.” An example of a negative statement is,
“I feel I do not have much to be proud of.” Those who agree
with the positive statements and disagree with the negative
statements have high self-esteem. They see themselves as
worthwhile, capable, and accepted. People with low self-esteem
view themselves in negative terms. They do not feel good about

themselves and are hampered by self-doubts.37 Nationality,
Life Span, and GenderSome have argued that self-esteem is
largely a Western or even American concept. To address this
allegation, researchers surveyed more than 13,000 students from
31 countries. They found that self-esteem and life satisfaction
were moderately related on a global basis. However, the
relationship was stronger in individualistic cultures (e.g.,
United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands) than
in collectivist cultures (e.g., Korea, Kenya, and Japan). The
reasoning is that individualistic cultures socialize people to
focus more on themselves, while people in collectivist cultures
“are socialized to fit into the community and to do their
duty.”41 Page 90 TABLE 3.5WAYS TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE
OF SELF-EFFICACY AT WORK APPLICATION
EXPLANATION 1. Job Design Complex, challenging, and
autonomous jobs tend to enhance perceived self-efficacy.
Boring, tedious jobs generally do the opposite. 2. Training and
Development Employees’ self-efficacy expectations for key
tasks can be improved through guided experiences, mentoring,
and role modeling. 3. Self-Management Systematic self-
management training involves enhancement of self-efficacy
expectations. 4. Goal Setting and Quality Improvement Goal
difficulty needs to match the individual’s perceived self-
efficacy.38 As self-efficacy and performance improve, goals
and quality standards can be made more challenging. 5.
Creativity Supportive managerial actions can enhance the strong
linkage between self-efficacy beliefs and workplace
creativity.39 6. Coaching Those with low self-efficacy and
employees victimized by learned helplessness need lots of
constructive pointers and positive feedback.40 7. Leadership
Leadership talent surfaces when top management gives high
self-efficacy managers a chance to prove themselves under
pressure. Some notable practical recommendations:
•Nationality—Global managers need to remember to
deemphasize self-esteem when doing business in collectivist
(“we”) cultures, as opposed to emphasizing it in individualistic

(“me”) cultures. •Life-Span—You can expect your self-esteem
to remain fairly stable over the course of your life, especially
after age 30. •Gender—Differences between men and women are
small at best. While this suggests that self-esteem is relatively
consistent within cultures, over time, and for men and women, it
begs the question: Can it be improved? Can Self-Esteem Be
Improved?The short answer is “yes.” So if your self-esteem is
lower than you’d like now, then don’t despair. For example, it
has been shown that supportive clinical mentors improved
medical residents’ self-esteem.42 But not everyone is
convinced. Page 91 Many individual differences influence
performance. Of those discussed so far in this chapter, which do
you think are most important for surgeons? Would you rather
have a surgeon with high self-efficacy or high self-esteem?
Improving Self-Esteem to Improve Performance Case for:
Researchers have found one method especially effective. “Low
self-esteem can be raised more by having the person think of
desirable characteristics possessed rather than of undesirable
characteristics from which he or she is free.”43 Case against:
Some researchers believe performing at a high level boosts your
self-esteem, and not the other way round. Therefore, they
reason it’s a mistake to focus on the self-esteem portion. We all
know people who “talk big” but “deliver small,” and thus seem
to suffer from delusions of competency. Our recommendation:
Apply yourself to things that are important to you. If getting an
A in your OB course affects your sense of self-worth, then you
will be motivated to work harder and presumably perform
better. Locus of Control: Who’s Responsible—Me or External
Factors? Locus of control is a relatively stable personality
characteristic that describes how much personal responsibility
you take for your behavior and its consequences. People tend to
attribute the causes of their behavior primarily to either
themselves or environmental factors.44 (Recall our discussion
of the person–environment distinction in Chapter 1.) Locus of
control has two fundamental forms—internal and external.
Internal Locus of ControlPeople who believe they control the

events and consequences that affect their lives are said to
possess an internal locus of control. For example, such a person
tends to attribute positive outcomes to her or his own abilities.
Similarly, an “internal” tends to blame negative events on
personal shortcomings. Many entrepreneurs eventually succeed
because their internal locus of control helps them overcome
setbacks and disappointments.45 They see themselves as
masters of their own fate and not as simply lucky. Accordingly,
those who willingly take high-stakes jobs in the face of
adversity (e.g., scandal or bankruptcy) likely have a high
internal locus. Page 92 External Locus of ControlIn contrast,
those who believe their performance is the product of
circumstances beyond their immediate control possess an
external locus of control and tend to attribute outcomes to
environmental causes, such as luck or fate. Unlike someone
with an internal locus of control, an “external” would attribute a
passing grade on an exam to something external (e.g., an easy
test) and attribute a failing grade to an unfair test or distractions
at work. Locus in the WorkplaceInternals and externals differ
greatly at work. Internals •Display greater work motivation
•Have stronger expectations that effort leads to performance
•Exhibit higher performance on tasks involving learning or
problem solving, when performance leads to valued rewards
•Derive more job satisfaction from performance Externals
•Demonstrate less motivation for performance when offered
valued rewards •Earn lower salaries and smaller salary increases
•Tend to be more anxious46 Emotional Stability As described in
our discussion of the Big Five and in Table 3.2, individuals with
high levels of emotional stability tend to be relaxed, secure,
unworried, and less likely to experience negative emotions
under pressure. In contrast, if you have low levels of emotional
stability you are prone to anxiety and tend to view the world
negatively. How is this knowledge useful at work? Employees
with high levels of emotional stability have been found to have
higher job performance, perform more organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCBs—going above and beyond one’s

job responsibilities), and exhibit fewer counterproductive work
behaviors (CWBs—undermining your own or others’ work).
Both OCBs and CWBs are discussed in Chapter 2, but all are
individual-level outcomes illustrated in Figure 3.1 and the
Integrative Framework. For an excellent illustration of
emotional stability and how it impacts an individual’s
professional and personal lives, see the Example box on the
following page about Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer
Ruth Porat. Three Practical Considerations Regarding CSEs
Before we leave CSEs, we’ll briefly touch on three areas of
interest: •Is more of a CSE component always better? •Is the
whole of the CSE components greater than its parts? •How can
CSEs be used by managers? Is More Always Better?As with
self-esteem, locus of control, and most other personality
attributes, more emotional stability is not always better.
Researchers found curvilinear, or inverted-U, relationships
between emotional stability and outcomes. This suggests that as
your emotional stability increases, so too will your job
performance and OCBs, but only to a point. Effect on
organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). As emotional
stability continues to increase, OCBs decline. The reasoning is
that as emotional stability increases you focus your attention on
the task at hand and your coworkers. Typically, a good thing.
However, at a certain level emotional stability becomes
problematic, too much of a good thing, and you are likely to
begin obsessing over details and lose sight of the larger
objectives and those with whom you work. The effect is similar
for counterproductive work behaviors. Page 93 EXAMPLEA
Female Wall Street Financial Chief Avoids the Pitfall That
Stymied Others47 Ruth Porat is the current chief financial
officer of Morgan Stanley and one of the most powerful women
on Wall Street. She is not an accountant and has never worked
in a finance department. However, she has effectively leveraged
her Stanford economics degree and Wharton MBA. More
impressive than this is that she has overcome many adversities
during her rise to the corporate suite. NOT A CRASHShe

started in finance in 1987 at Morgan Stanley, just before the
market crashed. She survived and a few years later moved on to
Smith Barney, a move she immediately regretted and feared
ruined her career. Obviously it didn’t. In 1996 she made her
way back to Morgan Stanley and eventually became a
technology banker during the tech boom, and bust, of the late
1990s. NOT A BUBBLEPorat then transformed herself into a
financial services banker and rode out the financial crisis of
2008–2010 and was named CFO of Morgan Stanley. Many of
her colleagues on the Street cautioned her about her new role.
They noted that the last two female CFOs for Wall Street
firms—Erin Callan of Lehman and Sally Krawcheck of
Citigroup—were casualties of the crisis. Worse still, Zoe Cruz,
formerly a co-president at Morgan, also was kicked off the
island. NOT EVEN CANCER AND CHILDBIRTHBut once
again Porat was undaunted. Despite also weathering two bouts
of breast cancer in the 2000s, she stayed the career course. Her
colleagues recognize her as one of the smartest, hardest
working, and most unshakeable people with whom they have
worked. She even made client calls in the delivery room during
the birth of her first child. She also insisted on finishing a
business presentation while lying on a conference room table,
after throwing her back out! Ruth Porat epitomizes emotional
stability—relaxed, secure, and unworried! YOUR THOUGHTS?
1.What are the advantages and disadvantages of such high levels
of emotional stability at school and work? 2.Do you think such
a personality characteristic is necessary to be a successful
executive on Wall Street? How do your answers change (if they
do) for a female executive? 3.How would you evaluate Porat on
the other three CSE traits of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and
locus of control? The San Antonio Spurs once again beat the
Miami Heat in the NBA Championship. This happened despite
many people saying that Miami’s top three players—James,
Wade, and Bosh—are the best threesome in the league. Can you
think of non-sports examples, where the whole is greater than
the sum of the parts? Effect on counterproductive work

behaviors (CWBs). Emotional stability buffered or protected
participants against stressors at work (e.g., trouble with their
supervisors, unfair policies, and too much work), such that they
were less bothered and thus less likely to act out (commit
CWBs). But there was a tipping point when the stress became
too much and emotional stability could not prevent employees
from committing CWBs. What is the lesson for you to take
away? Emotional stability is an asset for many types of jobs,
but it will only take you so far. Is the Whole of CSE Greater
Than Its Parts?As shown in Figure 3.2, core self-evaluations are
composed of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and
emotional stability. To clarify the value of a CSE as a whole
versus its component traits, think of basketball as a metaphor.
Page 94 Clearly a team outperforms any individual playing
alone. Even the greatest player ever would have no chance
against an entire team. The five greatest players ever, playing
individually, still have no chance against an entire team.
Individually they would never score! Thus the sum of their solo
efforts would be zero. However, if you assembled a team of the
five greatest players (you can debate this with a classmate—the
authors have their own picks), they would likely perform very
well. We don’t want to overemphasize the team concept that is
addressed in detail in Chapter 8, but the combination of
(talented) players in a team enables individual players to do
things they couldn’t otherwise do on their own. Moreover,
history tells us that teams with the best individual players (“all-
star teams”) don’t win every game. The fact that such teams
lose shows that indeed the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts—for their competitors! The sum of the all-stars is less
than the sum of their lesser competitors, at least sometimes.
CSE and its component traits are much the same. Core self-
evaluation is the team and the traits are the individual players—
the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. How Can I Use
CSEs?Especially in a managerial role, you can use knowledge
of CSEs in many practical ways, such as: •Employee selection.
It is more efficient to select using CSE as one, broad

personality characteristic rather than its four component traits.
Doing so also enables managers and employers to take
advantage of the many beneficial outcomes described above.
•Training. The training potential of CSEs is limited because
most of its components are traitlike or relatively fixed (self-
esteem, locus of control, and emotional stability). That said,
self-efficacy is relatively more flexible than the other three
components and thus can be enhanced as explained above.
(Figure 3.3 is an excellent “how to” guide.) Before moving on,
we encourage you to assess your own core self-evaluations in
Self-Assessment 3.3. Knowledge of your CSEs helps you
understand other components of your personality beyond the
Big Five discussed and assessed earlier. Awareness of your self-
esteem, self-efficacy, locus, and emotional stability can help
guide many aspects of your work life, such as what types of
jobs to look for and what types of development opportunities
may be most useful for you. SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.3How
Positively Do I See Myself? Measure Your Core Self-
Evaluations and Find Out Go to connect.mheducation.com and
take Self-Assessment 3.3 to learn your core self-evaluations.
Once you know your score, then answer the questions below:
1.What is your CSE score? A score greater than 48 is high,
between 36 and 48 moderate, and less than 36 low. 2.What are
the implications for your performance in school? Work? 3.Now
consider a scenario: You’re on a three-member team for a
project in this class. This project requires research, a paper, and
a presentation. Your CSE score is high, one team member’s is
moderate, and the other’s is low. Describe the potential
implications for how the three of you will work together and
your ultimate performance on the paper and presentation. Let’s
continue our discussion of IDs and learn about emotional
intelligence (EI) next. EI is an increasingly popular OB concept,
one that is relatively more flexible than CSEs and the others
discussed thus far. Page 95 3.5THE VALUE OF BEING
EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT MAJOR QUESTION What is
emotional intelligence and how does it help me? THE BIGGER

PICTURE You may have already seen how the smartest people
are not always the best people for the job. Smart or not,
everybody performs better if they have emotional intelligence.
When you understand the concept of emotional intelligence
from an OB perspective, you’ll understand why it is an
important person factor input in the Integrative Framework. As
we know, people deal with their emotions in many different
ways, which is one reason why we are discussing them in the
chapter on individual differences. For a long time many people
simply considered how well you manage your emotions as a
matter of maturity. However, since the mid-1990s researchers,
consultants, and managers have increasingly described
emotional maturity using the phrase emotional intelligence (EI).
What Is Emotional Intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the
ability to monitor your own emotions and those of others, to
discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide
your thinking and actions. Referred to by some as EI (used in
this book) and others as EQ, emotional intelligence is a mixture
of personality and emotions and has four key components (see
also Table 3.6): 1.Self-awareness 2.Self-management 3.Social
awareness 4.Relationship management48 The first two
constitute personal competence and the second two feed into
social competence. Recall the discussion earlier in the chapter
of inter- and intrapersonal intelligences described by Gardner.
EI builds on this work, although scholars and consultants don’t
always acknowledge this history or similarity. That said, you
might wonder: “Why another type of intelligence, and how is EI
different from IQ?” Those who developed the concept argue that
traditional models of IQ are too narrow, failing to consider
interpersonal competence. They also argue from a practical
perspective that EI is more flexible than IQ and can be
developed throughout your working life. If you recall, this is
consistent with how we described things in Figure 3.1 and the
practical benefits of relatively flexible IDs. Benefits of EI EI
has been linked to better social relationships, well-being, and
satisfaction across ages and contexts, including work. For

instance, employees with high EI were perceived more
positively by co-workers and more effective as sellers (but not
buyers) in negotiations. And while research results are mixed,
EI also has implications for job performance and leadership:
Page 96 Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary
Fund since 2011, illustrates the importance of EI for leaders.
For instance, EI was essential in negotiating a solution to the
Greek financial crisis, as many of the players had conflicting
interests and intense emotions. Success required her not only to
be aware of and able to manage her own emotions, but she also
needed to accurately assess and respond to the emotions of
many other European Union leaders.49 Job Performance •EI has
been linked to higher sales and greater customer retention for
both real estate and insurance sales representatives.50 •A study
of executives found that how those with high EI produced
results was rated positively by subordinates, but the actual
results themselves were not related to EI.51 Leadership •EI was
positively related to leadership emergence, behavior, and
effectiveness (all discussed in detail in Chapter 13). •EI was not
clearly related to job performance, satisfaction, and other
outcomes.52 Take-aways.Considered together, the results of EI
research are mixed. We therefore encourage you to proceed with
caution, as every day there are more consulting companies
selling EI programs and claiming EI is the silver bullet of
performance. To date, the research just isn’t clear. However, we
also encourage you to identify and develop your own EI to
realize the clear interpersonal benefits. Table 3.6 can serve as a
guide. TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP 1.Using Table
3.6, evaluate and develop a plan to enhance your EI. What are
your personal strengths and weaknesses in terms of both
personal and social competence? Be honest. 2.Think of an
example where your EI has helped you and an example where
you would have benefited from greater EI. 3.Identify one aspect
of personal competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you
can improve it. Be specific. 4.Identify one aspect of social
competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you can improve

it. Be specific. Page 97 TABLE 3.6DEVELOPING MY
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PERSONAL COMPETENCE
HOW WE MANAGE OURSELVES CAPABILITY
DESCRIPTION Self-Awareness Emotional self-awareness
Accurate self-assessment Self-confidence Reading one’s own
emotions and recognizing their impact; using “gut sense” to
guide decisions Knowing one’s strengths and limits A sound
sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities Self-Management
Emotional self-control Transparency Adaptability Achievement
Initiative Optimism Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses
under control Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness
Flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming
obstacles The drive to improve performance to meet inner
standards of excellence Readiness to act and seize opportunities
Seeing the upside in events SOCIAL COMPETENCE HOW WE
MANAGE RELATIONSHIPS CAPABILITY DESCRIPTION
Social Awareness Empathy Organizational awareness Service
Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and
taking active interest in their concerns Reading the currents,
decision networks, and politics at the organizational level
Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs
Relationship Management Inspirational leadership Influence
Developing others Change catalyst Conflict management
Building bonds Teamwork and collaboration Guiding and
motivating with a compelling vision Wielding a range of tactics
for persuasion Bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and
guidance Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction
Resolving disagreements Cultivating and maintaining a web of
relationships Cooperation and team building SOURCE:
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press.
From Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional
Intelligence by D. Goleman, R. Bovatzis, and A. McKee,
Boston, MA, 2002, p. 39. Copyright 2002 by the Harvard
Business School Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved.
Now that you’ve learned about emotional intelligence, let’s
explore emotions themselves. Page 98 3.6UNDERSTAND

EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE MAJOR
QUESTION How can understanding emotions make me more
effective at work? THE BIGGER PICTURE Because you’re
human you have emotions. You won’t be surprised then to learn
that emotions are important both at work and as an individual-
level process in the Integrative Framework of OB. You’re about
to learn the difference between felt versus displayed emotions
and how emotions serve as an important means of
communication with both ourselves and others. Most of your
experiences elicit a mix of positive and negative emotions, and
these emotions also are tightly related to your goals.
Historically, and still true today, many people believe that
employees should check their emotions at the door when they
come to work. The reality is that this is impossible. Like
personality and the other IDs discussed thus far, emotions are
an integral part of who we are as people, a fundamental part of
the human experience, and therefore they are an essential part
of our identity at work and influence how we perform. Given
this reality, it is important to understand emotions and how they
affect people so you can manage emotions as a process to
benefit you, your team, and your employer. This will help make
emotions a practical tool for you to use, rather than something
to avoid, ignore, or suppress. Emotions—We All Have Them,
but What Are They? Emotions are complex, relatively brief
responses aimed at a particular target, such as a person,
information, experience, event, or nonevent. They also change
psychological and/or physiological states.53 Importantly,
researchers draw a distinction between felt and displayed
emotions.54 For example, if your boss screams at you when
she’s angry, you might feel threatened or fearful (felt emotion).
You might keep your feelings to yourself or begin to cry (either
response is the displayed emotion). The boss might feel alarmed
(felt emotion) by your tears but could react constructively
(displayed emotion) by asking if you’d like to talk about the
situation when you feel calmer. Emotions also motivate your
behavior and are an important means for communicating with

others. Think about it—a smile on your face signals that you’re
happy or pleased, while a scowl and a loud, forceful tone of
voice may reflect anger. We also know that our emotions can
and often do change moment to moment and thus are more
flexible than the other IDs discussed thus far. As such, emotions
have important implications for you at school, work, and every
other social arena of your life. Emotions as Positive or Negative
Reactions to Goal Achievement You’ll notice from the
definition that emotions can be thought of in terms of your
goals.55 Accordingly, positive and negative emotions can be
distinguished in terms of goals. Page 99 •Positive. If your goal
is to do well at school and you graduate on time and with
honors, you are likely to experience common positive emotions,
such as joy, gratitude, pride, satisfaction, contentment, and
relief. The emotions are positive because they are congruent (or
consistent) with your goal. •Negative. Negative emotions are
triggered by frustration and failure when pursuing one’s goals.
They are said to be goal incongruent. Common negative
emotions are anger, fright, anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness, envy,
jealousy, and disgust. Which of these are you likely to
experience if you fail the final exam in a required course?
Failing the exam would be incongruent with your goal of
graduating on time with a good GPA. Typically, the more
important the goal, the more intense the emotion. •Mixed.
Meeting or failing to meet our goals can also generate mixed
emotions. Say you receive a well-earned promotion, which
includes positives like more responsibility and pay—but only if
you relocate to another state, which you don’t want to do.
Besides Positive and Negative, Think Past vs. Future To be
sure, the negative-positive distinction matters—you’re happy,
you’re sad. However, another characteristic of emotions can be
especially useful for managers. Say you’re a manager in a
company that just downsized 15 percent of its employees. This
is horrible for all those who lost their jobs, but let’s focus on
two fictitious employees who survived the cuts—Shelby and
Jennifer. Both of them feel negatively about the job cuts, but in

different ways. Shelby. Her dominant emotion is anger. People
are typically angry about things that happened (or didn’t
happen) in the past. This means that anger is a “backward-
looking” or retrospective emotion. Jennifer. Her dominant
emotion is fear. People are typically fearful of things that might
happen in the future. As such, fear is a “forward-looking” or
prospective emotion. Practical implications for managers.
Knowing these emotions tells you that Shelby is likely most
concerned with something that happened in the past, such as
how the decisions were made as to who to terminate. She may
think that the process was unfair and caused a number of her
favorite colleagues to be let go. As for Jennifer, knowing that
she is dominated by fear tells you that it is uncertainty about the
future—perhaps her job might be cut next—that concerns her
most. As their manager, having this more specific knowledge of
Shelby’s and Jennifer’s emotions can guide your own actions.
The following Take-Away Application (TAAP) builds on this
scenario. TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP Assume you
are their manager and you know Shelby’s dominant emotion
related to the downsizing is anger and Jennifer’s is fear: 1.What
are two specific things you could do to alleviate Shelby’s
anger? 2.What are two specific things you could do to reduce
Jennifer’s fear? 3.What other things could you do to increase
their positive emotions related to the changes? How Can I
Manage My Negative Emotions at Work? Page 100
Theoretically, you could simply translate your felt emotions
into displayed emotions—unfiltered. Besides being unrealistic,
this would be disastrous. Organizations have emotion display
norms, or rules that dictate which types of emotions are
expected and appropriate for their members to show.56 But
what can you do when inevitably sometimes you feel negative
emotions at work? See the following Example box that
describes the costs and benefits of displaying anger at work.
EXAMPLEThe Good and Bad of Anger at Work Andrew
Cornell, CEO of Cornell Iron Works, understands the days of
the screaming boss are numbered. He deals with anger towards

his employees by holding frequent and brief meetings, “rather
than ‘waiting until the end, throwing a nuclear bomb and
leaving blood all over the wall.’”57 Screaming takes other
forms too. At work you might receive a hostile e-mail berating
you, copied to coworkers, in ALL CAPS. Science supports the
many people who believe that “yelling” via e-mail or face-to-
face is inappropriate and counterproductive. You may have been
in a group meeting when someone was so angry he or she began
to scream and bully another person. Bullying and yelling are
unprofessional, are uncalled for, and damage the reputation of
the perpetrator. COSTS OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONSGrowing
research evidence supports the undesirable outcomes from
negative emotions that we all suspect. Negative emotions due to
organizational change, for example, are linked to more sick time
used and employee turnover.58 UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS MAY
SUFFER TWICECustomers’ negative emotional displays (e.g.,
verbal aggression) have been shown to negatively affect
employee job performance. Specifically, receivers of the
aggression made more mistakes recalling and processing the
customers’ complaints!59 You may want to think twice before
venting on a customer service representative. WHAT ABOUT
THE BENEFITS OF ANGER?Expressing your anger sometimes
can actually solve the problem. Your message is communicated,
albeit forcefully, which can lead to better understanding.
Displays of anger also are more likely to be beneficial if they
are directed at organizational issues and problems instead of
individuals. Being angry at the problem rather than the person is
likely to be perceived more constructively and less
defensively.60 YOUR THOUGHTS? 1.What advice would you
give to managers on how to handle their own anger and other
negative emotions at work? 2.What advice would you give to
managers on how to handle the anger and negative emotions felt
(and expressed) by their direct reports? 3.What has been the
most productive way for you to deal with your negative
emotions? When executives get angry, they can get rude. In
2001, unhappy with an investor in a conference call who noted

Enron seemed unable to produce its balance sheet, CEO Jeff
Skilling said, “Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that,
A--hole.” Enron later declared bankruptcy in one of the biggest
financial scandals at the start of the century. Skilling was
convicted on 19 counts of securities and wire fraud in 2006.
Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! from 2009 to 2011, told staff that
if anyone leaked company secrets, she would “drop-kick” them
“to f---ing Mars.” Like Skilling’s comment, Bartz’s statement
was widely reported. Bartz was most likely fired by Yahoo! for
business reasons and not for tough talk. Page 101 Of course
anger isn’t the only negative emotion. Table 3.7 provides
guidance on a variety of negative emotions and how to deal with
them. As you study the table, think of your own experiences and
reactions and how the recommendations in Table 3.7 could have
helped. TABLE 3.7COMMON NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND
HOW TO HANDLE THEM IF YOU’RE FEELING … THEN
YOU MIGHT WANT TO … Fearful Step back and try to see the
situation objectively. Ask yourself: “Is my business or career
truly at risk?” If not, then you may just be feeling nervous and
excited rather than fearful. Rejected Do you actually
respect the opinion of the person rejecting you? If the comment
came from an idiot, someone you don’t respect, the comment
may actually be a backhanded compliment. If you do respect the
person, then you may want to clarify by asking: “The other day
you said and I felt hurt. Can you clarify what happened?” Angry
Get some distance from the situation to avoid blowing your top
in the heat of the moment. Once you calm down, then precisely
pinpoint the reason you are angry. In most every instance it’s
because somebody violated a rule or standard that is deeply
important to you. Then find a way to communicate the
importance of the rule or standard to the person so it doesn’t
happen again. Frustrated This happens at work when results
don’t meet your expectations, given the amount of time and
energy you’ve applied. The goal often is achievable, but
progress is slow. First, reassess your plan and behavior. Do they
need modification? If no, then perhaps you simply need to be

patient. Inadequate Even those with the highest self-esteem
feel they don’t measure up at times. Our discussion of self-
efficacy and how to build it in Table 3.5 can guide your solution
to this emotion. Stressed Time constraints are a major source of
stress. Too many commitments, too little time. You therefore
need to prioritize! Do what is important rather than what is
urgent. For example, most e-mail is urgent but not important.
SOURCE: Adapted from G. James, “Feeling Negative? How to
Overcome It,” Inc. Magazine, November 26, 2012. Page 102
3.7PRACTICE, LUCK, AND SUCCESS MAJOR QUESTION
How can I be “deliberate” about success? THE BIGGER
PICTURE You already know that luck can and does play a role
in people’s success. What isn’t always as apparent is how some
people work at being lucky. We define and explain how
deliberate practice and preparing yourself for luck contribute to
success. In this chapter we’ve moved from fixed individual
differences, such as intelligence and CSEs, to relatively flexible
emotional intelligence and emotions. If given the choice, of
course you’d rather have high intelligence than low. And if
you’re a manager or own your own business you’d rather hire
intelligent people who also have high levels of
conscientiousness and emotional intelligence. However, all of
these individual differences are relatively fixed when compared
to your behaviors. This means that you have far more control
over the things you do than over who you are. We therefore
conclude this chapter by describing deliberate practice and luck
and their roles in your success. Success = 10,000 Hours While
we cannot define success for you—it depends on your own
history, expectations, goals and dreams, opportunities, and some
of the IDs discussed in this chapter—we can provide some
guidance on how to achieve success as you define it. To make
the point, think of something you want to become really, really
good at—world-class good. Perhaps you want to be truly
excellent in a sport, playing an instrument, software design, or
writing. Then take the advice from an old New York City joke:
Tourist: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” New Yorker:

“Practice, practice, practice.”61 Okay, so how much practice?
Try the 10,000-hour rule. After studying relevant research
evidence, Malcolm Gladwell came to this conclusion in his best-
selling book Outliers: The Story of Success: [T]he closer
psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the
role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role
preparation seems to play. . . . [T]he people at the very top
don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else.
They work much, much harder. . . . Ten thousand hours is the
magic number of greatness.62 Generally, that works out to
about 10 years of deliberate practice, which is a demanding,
repetitive, and assisted program to improve one’s
performance.63 Table 3.8 describes the hallmarks of deliberate
practice. Page 103 TABLE 3.8THE FIVE PROPERTIES OF
DELIBERATE PRACTICE CHARACTERISTIC COMMENT
1. Designed to improve performance. You start the process of
skill development by identifying specific aspects of
performance that need improvement. For example, if you want
to become a better writer, you could study other writers and
their books, and show your writing to other professional writers
for feedback. 2. Can be repeated a lot. It’s all about repetition.
The activity you are trying to improve must be something that
can be repeated many, many times. 3. Provides feedback on a
regular basis. To evaluate how well you are doing something,
you need objective valuation. And when you don’t have
feedback, it removes motivation to improve. Some tasks provide
more of a challenge for feedback, as with music, public
speaking, and auditioning for an acting role. That’s why
coaches or mentors matter. 4. Is highly demanding mentally.
Focusing on one or two targeted aspects of performance takes
effort and concentration. This puts strains on our mental
abilities. The best violinists, for instance, practice about three
and a half hours a day, but not in one session. They find it helps
to take a break in order to maintain their concentration. Chess
champions also indicate that they spend a maximum of four or
five hours practicing per day. 5. Isn’t much fun. Deliberate

practice requires us to focus on things we are not good at doing.
It would be more fun to repeat behaviors or activities at which
we excel. Colvin, in his book “Talent Is Overrated,” concluded
that “if the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun,
then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the
best from the rest. The reality that deliberate practice is hard
can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won’t
do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the
more.”64 SOURCE: G. Colvin, Talent Is Overrated: What
Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
(New York: Penguin, 2008). Tiger Woods. top rated golfer.
Tiger Woods has the second most professional tours wins and is
second in major tournament wins. Talented? Of course. But
don’t forget how much practice! Talent Is Overrated—Practice
Is the Key Fortune magazine’s Geoff Colvin, in his interesting
book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class
Performers from Everybody Else, says this about deliberate
practice: It is activity designed specifically to improve
performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a
lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly
demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual,
such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical,
such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.65 Tiger Woods, for
example, relentlessly polished every aspect of his golf game
since he was a toddler—first under his father’s tutelage and
later with the best coaches—to become the world’s top golfer.
Besides the troubles in his personal life, he also suffered
injuries that further eroded his performance and cost him his top
ranking. To his credit, however, he devoted himself to retooling
his swing, engaged in immense deliberate practice over the
period of years, and once again claimed the number one world
ranking in early 2013. Beyond sports, scientific research has
given great attention to the benefits of deliberate practice in the
training and performance of physicians. Simulation-based
mastery is becoming a core principle in training doctors. Herein
the elements of expert performance in a given practice area

(e.g., gall bladder surgery) are identified, and then training,
often including simulations, is built around practicing these
elements.66 Page 104 TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION—TAAP
1.Select two goals or endeavors at which you’d like to excel.
2.Create a deliberate practice plan for each that includes what
you will do, how you will do it, when, and why (for what
purpose). 3.Using Table 3.8, check or evaluate your plan in
terms of (a) if it can be repeated a lot, (b) what you can do to
combat the mental demands or fatigue, and (c) what you can do
to help “add fun” into your practice plan. Most Practice Is NOT
Deliberate Now you’ve learned that there is more to success
than practice and talent. And while you and others may indeed
spend considerable time practicing, it is important to point out
that what most of us think of as practice is not deliberate
practice. We want to call your attention to two particular
qualities of deliberate practice that most people overlook—
feedback and difficulty. As a general rule, feedback is a
necessary element of any type of development program. You
need to know if you’re making progress. During deliberate
practice, feedback often comes from another person (e.g., a
coach), not just yourself or the task (you’ll learn much more
about feedback in Chapter 6). Beyond this, deliberate practice is
difficult. Instead of simply repeating a task over and over, like
you’ve always done it, you need to get out of your comfort zone
and stretch yourself. This means that many people with years of
experience may not actually perform at a high level. We’re not
saying experience doesn’t matter—of course it does. However,
you can use deliberate practice to help you compete more
effectively against somebody who has simply gone through the
motions, operated in his or her comfort zone, for years and
years. Would I Rather Be Lucky or Good? Actually, you don’t
have to decide. There’s a third choice—both! Nevertheless, if
you want to know about luck, then talk to lucky and unlucky
people to see how they differ. It turns out that luck involves
much more than simple random chance or coincidence. Lucky
people, through how they think and behave, make their own

good fortune. To help you improve your luck, we provide the
following recommendations: 1.Be active and involved. Be open
to new experiences and network with others to encounter more
lucky chance opportunities. 2.Listen to your hunches about
luck. Learn when to listen to your intuition or gut feelings.
Meditation and mind-clearing activities can help. 3.Expect to be
lucky no matter how bad the situation. Remain optimistic and
work to make your expectations a self-fulfilling prophecy.
4.Turn your bad luck into good fortune. Take control of bad
situations by remaining calm, positive, and focused on a better
future.67 Many successful people made their own luck by
making the best of life’s hard knocks. We suggest you do the
same. Turn lemons into lemonade. We expand on this positive
perspective in Chapter 7. Page 105 what did i learn? You
learned that who you are affects performance because Individual
differences (IDs) play an important and often fundamental role
in how you perform at school, at work, and in other contexts.
Many practical applications of this learning will allow you to
improve your own performance and work more effectively in
any organizational setting, including one where you manage
others. Reinforce your learning with the Key Points below.
Consolidate your learning using the Integrative Framework.
Then Challenge your mastery of the material by answering the
Major Questions in your own words. Key Points for
Understanding Chapter 3 You learned the following key points.
3.1THE DIFFERENCES MATTER •Individual differences (IDs)
is a broad category used to collectively describe the vast
number of attributes (e.g., traits and behaviors) that describe
you as a person. •It is helpful to think of IDs in terms of their
relative stability. Intelligence is relatively fixed whereas
attitudes and emotions are more flexible and under your control.
3.2INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY
THAN IQ •Intelligence represents an individual’s capacity for
constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. It is
more than IQ. •Howard Gardner, in his theory of multiple
intelligences, describes eight different intelligences—linguistic,

logical, musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, and naturalist. •Practical intelligence is the
ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing knowledge
gained from experience in order to purposefully adapt to, shape,
and select environments. •Knowledge of various forms of
intelligence is useful for identifying intelligences relevant to
particular jobs, which can then be used to select, place, and
develop individuals accordingly. 3.3PERSONALITY, OB, AND
MY EFFECTIVENESS •Personality is defined as the
combination of stable physical, behavioral, and mental
characteristics that give individuals their unique identities. •A
useful way to describe personality is using the Big Five
personality dimensions. These are five basic dimensions that
simplify more complex models of personality: extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and
openness to experience. •People with proactive personalities are
relatively unconstrained by situational forces and often affect
environmental change. Proactive people identify opportunities
and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere
until meaningful change occurs. •Personality tests are
commonly used by employers to select and place employees.
However, it is important to know there is no ideal personality
and personality testing often has flaws. 3.4CORE SELF-
EVALUATIONS: HOW MY SELF-EFFICACY, SELF-ESTEEM,
LOCUS OF CONTROL, AND EMOTIONAL STABILITY
AFFECT MY PERFORMANCE •Core self-evaluations (CSEs)
represent a broad personality trait comprising four narrower and
positive individual traits: (1) self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3)
locus of control, and (4) emotional stability. •Self-efficacy is a
person’s belief about his or her chances of successfully
accomplishing a specific task. •Self-efficacy beliefs can be
improved via experience, behavior models, persuasion from
others, and one’s emotional state. •The practical value of CSEs
can be realized in selecting employees and training them to
enhance elements of their CSEs. 3.5THE VALUE OF BEING
EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT •Emotional intelligence (EI)

is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and
emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this
information to guide one’s thinking and actions. •EI is
associated with higher sales and improved retention, as well as
leadership emergence, behavior, and effectiveness. •You can
develop your EI by building your personal competence (self-
awareness and self-management) and social competence (social
awareness and relationship management). 3.6UNDERSTAND
EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE •Emotions are
complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target,
such as a person, information, experience, event, or nonevent.
•Most experiences at work and otherwise are a mixture of
positive and negative emotions, rather than purely one or the
other. •Besides positive and negative emotions, it can be
practically useful to understand and distinguish emotions in
terms of their future orientation (e.g., anxiety) or past
orientation (e.g., anger). •Organizations have emotion display
norms or rules that dictate which types of emotions are expected
and appropriate for their members to show. It therefore is
important to learn how to manage your emotions.
3.7PRACTICE, LUCK, AND SUCCESS •Deliberate practice can
significantly affect your success in many areas of life; you can
make your own luck. •Some experts argue that practice is more
important than raw talent. •Deliberate practice is a well-proven
path to success in many endeavors. It requires a program that is
designed to improve actual performance, can be repeated,
provides regular feedback, is highly demanding mentally, and
isn’t much fun. •You can improve your chances of being lucky.
The Integrative Framework for Chapter 3 As shown in Figure
3.4, you learned how individual differences can present
themselves, through the process of emotions (both felt and
expressed) at the individual level, affecting many workplace
outcomes at both the individual and group/team levels.
Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 3 At the start of the
chapter, we told you that after reading the chapter you should
be able to answer the following questions. Unless you can, have

you really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter?
Refer to the Key Points, Figure 3.4, the chapter itself, and your
notes to revisit and answer the following major questions:
1.How does understanding the relative stability of individual
differences benefit me? 2.How do multiple intelligences affect
my performance? 3.How does my personality affect my
performance? 4.How do self-evaluations affect my performance
at work? 5.What is emotional intelligence and how does it help
me? 6.How can understanding emotions make me more effective
at work? 7.How can I be “deliberate” about success? FIGURE
3.4INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING
AND APPLYING OB © 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate.
All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission
of the authors. Page 106 PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION
CASE (PSAC) Why Are Employees Leaving Google? Facebook?
Who’s Next? Use the knowledge of OB presented in this chapter
to apply the Integrative Framework of OB and the problem-
solving approach to the following case. Applying all of this
knowledge should enable you to recommend realistic and
effective solutions. Many organizations recite a common
mantra: “Our employees are our most valuable asset.” How
many companies then back this up and walk the talk is another
matter. However, employees are indeed the most valuable asset
of many knowledge-based companies, whose value resides in
the experience, skills, and abilities of their employees. Google,
one of the hottest companies to work for and repeatedly one of
the most admired employers on the planet (no. 1 again in
2013),68 is acutely aware of this fact. Google’s talent (i.e.,
employees) is largely responsible for the company’s tremendous
success to date and will largely determine the company’s future
success. It is no wonder then that many other companies
continually and intensely compete for Google’s talent to drive
their own growth and success. Notable examples are Sheryl
Sandberg (Facebook), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!), Lars Rasmussen
(Facebook), and Richard Alfonsi (Twitter). (Some reports as far
back as 2010 allege that over 140 Facebook employees are from

Google.) Even Craig Silverstein, Google’s third employee—
after Sergey and Larry—left to work at Khan Academy.69
Despite Google’s perennial status as one of the best places to
work, it “competes for potential workers with Apple, Facebook,
Amazon, Microsoft, and scores of start-ups, so every
employee’s departure triggers a costly, time-consuming
recruiting process.”70 The pay and the perks don’t seem to be
enough either. In 2010, then CEO Eric Schmidt gave every
employee a 10 percent pay raise. Google also was reported to
offer enormous counteroffers—15 percent raise, 4x the stock
benefits, and $500,000 cash bonus. Yet even this hasn’t been
enough to persuade some!71 As Robert Greene, a recruiter of
engineers for tech start-ups, put it, “Google isn’t the hot place
to work” and has “become the safe place to work.”72 Possible
Reasons Articles, blogs, and many other sources speculate and
report a variety of potential reasons. For instance, one obvious
one is because the company is no longer a start-up. It now
qualifies as a behemoth with 30,000 employees. And because of
the size it has many employees filling each and every role.
However, rumor has it that if you are not an engineer, you are a
second-class citizen. Similarly, if you don’t office in Mountain
View (the headquarters), then you have no connection or
impact. Other employees simply report that it is now a large
bureaucracy that is slow and inefficient.73 These complaints
occur despite the fact that employees get the famous “20%
time” to work on projects of their choosing. To some employees
this makes matters worse, as one devotes so much time to
developing ideas, yet now there is little chance they get
implemented.74 Is Facebook Next? What about the Next Hot
Company? If Google is victim to tech employees’ lust for the
latest, most exciting, and not yet public start-up, then is
Facebook next? Is your company next? Should every successful
start-up that matures into a full-fledged viable business expect
the same fate for its essential, life-giving talent? For instance,
Facebook’s IPO in 2012 was enormous. And even though the
stock fell sharply afterwards, many millionaires were created.

And its average compensation seems to be similar to that
offered at Google. Some reports, however, suggest that the
luster is wearing off. Employee ratings of company satisfaction,
compensation, and work–life balance have been declining since
2009. (The same survey reports Google’s employee ratings of
the same characteristics to be stable over this period.)75 More
recent data reveal that employee satisfaction at Google has once
again surpassed that of Facebook employees.76 Apply the 3-
Stop Problem-Solving Approach to OB Stop 1:What is the
problem? •Use the Integrative Framework in Figure 3.4 to help
identify the outcomes that are important in this case. •Which of
these outcomes are not being achieved in the case? •Based on
considering the above two questions, what is the most important
problem in this case? Stop 2:Use the Integrative Framework in
Figure 3.4 to help identify the OB concepts or theories that help
you to understand the problem in this case. •What person factors
are most relevant? •What environmental characteristics are most
important to consider? •Do you need to consider any processes?
Which ones? •What concepts or theories discussed in this
chapter are most relevant for solving the key problem in this
case? Stop 3:What are your recommendations for solving the
problem? •Review the material in the chapter that most pertains
to your proposed solution and look for practical
recommendations. •Use any past OB knowledge or experience to
generate recommendations. •Outline your plan for solving the
problem in this case. Page 107 LEGAL/ETHICAL
CHALLENGE Companies Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban77
An increasing number of companies are using smoking as a
reason to turn away job applicants. Employers argue that such
policies increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs,
and encourage healthier lifestyles. These policies up the ante on
previous, less-effective efforts, such as no-smoking work
environments, cessation programs, and higher health care
premiums for smokers. “Tobacco-free hiring” often requires
applicants to submit to a urine test for nicotine, and, if hired,
violations are cause for termination. The shift from “smoke-

free” to “smoker-free” workplaces has prompted sharp debate
about employers intruding into employees’ private lives and
regulating legal behaviors. Some state courts have upheld the
legality of refusing to employ smokers. For example, hospitals
in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, among others, stopped
hiring smokers in the past year. Some justified the new policies
as ways to reduce health care costs and to advance their
institutional missions of promoting personal well-being.
Supporters of these policies note that smoking continues to be
the leading cause of preventable death. About 20 percent of
Americans still smoke, and smokers cost approximately $3,391
per year in lost productivity and additional health care
expenses. Opponents argue that such policies are a slippery
slope. Successful nonsmoker policies may lead to limits on
other legal employee behaviors, like drinking alcohol, eating
fast food, and participating in dangerous sports. Many
companies add their own wrinkle to the smoking ban and even
forbid nicotine patches. And while most companies apply the
rules only to new employees, a few have eventually mandated
that existing employees must quit smoking or lose their jobs.
Questions: Managing Emotions While Managing a Smoking
Problem 1.“Today’s discrimination against smokers is
equivalent to now illegal racial and gender discrimination years
ago.” Do you agree or disagree? Explain. 2.Assume you are the
employee representative on the executive board at your
company. You know the VP of HR plans to propose a smoker
ban to begin June 1 for all new hires and the following January
for all existing employees. However, you’ve been asked to keep
the plans quiet. What would you do and why? 3.Now, assume
you have permission to share the information. You know
employees’ responses are likely to be emotional (some positive
and some negative). How would you present the information to
them? 4.More generally, under what circumstances do
companies have the right to consider and ban legal employee
behaviors during the hiring process? Explain. 5.What is your

position regarding policy changes (e.g., smoker ban) and
applying them to existing employees who were hired under
different guidelines? Explain your position. GROUP EXERCISE
Anger Control Role Play Objectives 1.To demonstrate that
emotions can be managed. 2.To develop your interpersonal
skills for managing both your own and someone else’s anger.
Introduction Personal experience and research tell us that anger
begets anger. People do not make their best decisions when
angry. Angry outbursts often inflict unintentional interpersonal
damage by triggering other emotions (e.g., disgust in observers
and subsequent guilt and shame in the angry person). Effective
managers know how to break the cycle of negative emotions by
defusing anger in themselves and others. This is a role-playing
exercise for groups of four. You will have a chance to play two
different roles. All the roles are generic, so they can be played
as either a woman or a man. Instructions Your instructor will
divide the class into groups of four. Everyone should read all
five roles described. Members of each foursome will decide
among themselves who will play which roles. All told, you will
participate in two rounds of role playing (each round lasting no
longer than eight minutes). In round one, one person will play
Role 1 and another will play Role 3; the remaining two group
members will play Role 5. In round two, those who played Role
5 in the first round will play Roles 2 and 4. The other two will
switch to Role 5. Role 1: The Angry (Out-of-Control) Shift
Supervisor Page 108 You work for a leading electronics
company that makes computer chips and other computer-related
equipment. Your factory is responsible for assembling and
testing the company’s most profitable line of computer
microprocessors. Business has been good, so your factory is
working three shifts. The day shift, which you are now on, is
the most desirable one. The night shift, from 11 pm to 7:30 am
is the least desirable and least productive. In fact, the night
shift is such a mess that your boss, the factory manager, wants
you to move to the night shift next week. Your boss just broke
this bad news as the two of you are having lunch in the

company cafeteria. You are shocked and angered because you
are one of the most senior and highly rated shift supervisors in
the factory. Thanks to your leadership, your shift has broken all
production records during the past year. As the divorced single
parent of a 10-year-old child, the radical schedule change would
be a major lifestyle burden. Questions swirl through your head.
“Why me?” “What kind of reliable child care will be available
when I sleep during the day and work at night?” “Why should I
be ‘punished’ for being a top supervisor?” “Why don’t they hire
someone for the position?” Your boss asks what you think. Page
109 When playing this role, be as realistic as possible without
getting so loud that you disrupt the other groups. Also, if
anyone in your group would be offended by foul language,
please refrain from cursing during your angry outburst. Role 2:
The Angry (Under-Control) Shift Supervisor Same situation as
in Role 1. But this role will require you to read and act
according to the tips below (Guides for Action and Pitfalls to
Avoid). You have plenty of reason to be frustrated and angry,
but you realize the importance of maintaining a good working
relationship with the factory manager. Guides for Action
•Appreciate the potentially valuable lessons from anger. •Use
mistakes and slights to learn. •Recognize that you and others
can do well enough without being perfect. •Trust that most
people want to be caring, helpful family members and
colleagues. •Forgive others and yourself. •Confront unrealistic,
blame-oriented assumptions. •Adopt constructive, learning-
oriented assumptions. Pitfalls to Avoid •Assume every slight is
a painful wound. •Equate not getting what you want with
catastrophe. •See every mistake and slip as a transgression that
must be corrected immediately. •Attack someone for your
getting angry. •Attack yourself for getting angry. •Try to be and
have things perfect. •Suspect people’s motives unless you have
incontestable evidence that people can be trusted. •Assume any
attempt to change yourself is an admission of failure. •Never
forgive. Role 3: The (Hard-Driving) Factory Manager You have
a reputation for having a “short fuse.” When someone gets

angry with you, you attack. When playing this role, be as
realistic as possible. Remember, you are responsible for the
entire factory with its 1,200 employees and hundreds of
millions of dollars of electronics products. A hiring freeze is in
place, so you have to move one of your current supervisors. You
have chosen your best supervisor because the night shift is your
biggest threat to profitable operations. The night-shift
supervisor gets a 10 percent pay premium. Ideally, the move
will only be for six months. Role 4: The (Mellow) Factory
Manager Same general situation as in Role 3. However, this role
will require you to read and act according to the tips that follow
(Guides for Action and Pitfalls to Avoid). You have a reputation
for being results-oriented but reasonable. You are good at
taking a broad, strategic view of problems and are a good
negotiator. Guides for Action •Expect angry people to
exaggerate. •Recognize the other’s frustrations and pressures.
•Use the provocation to develop your abilities. •Allow the other
to let off steam. •Begin to problem-solve when the anger is at
moderate levels. •Congratulate yourself on turning an outburst
into an opportunity to find solutions. •Share successes with
partners. Pitfalls to Avoid •Take every word literally.
•Denounce the most extreme statements and ignore more
moderate ones. •Doubt yourself because the other does. •Attack
because you have been attacked. •Forget the experience without
learning from it. Role 5: Silent Observer Follow the exchange
between the shift supervisor and the factory manager without
talking or getting actively involved. Jot down some notes (for
later class discussion) as you observe whether the factory
manager did a good job of managing the supervisor’s anger.
Questions for Discussion 1.Why is uncontrolled anger a sure
road to failure? 2.Is it possible to express anger without
insulting others? Explain. 3.Which is more difficult, controlling
anger in yourself or defusing someone else’s anger? Why?
4.What useful lessons did you learn from this role-playing
exercise? Source: From D. Tjosvold, Learning to Manage
Conflict: Getting People to Work Together Productively, 127–

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