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LEARNING OBJECTIVES  Define the overall meaning of personality.  Identify the “Big Five” personality traits and the Myers-Briggs types.  Describe the perceptual process and its major dimensions.  Examine the sources and outcomes of the major employee attitudes of job satisfaction,

organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors.

This chapter discusses the cognitive, personal variables of personality, perception, and employee attitudes. These major psychological constructs are very popular ways to describe and analyze what goes into organizational behavior. Yet, like the other cognitively oriented processes, personality, perception, and employee attitudes are quite complex. The aim of this chapter is to facilitate a better understanding of such complexities of today’s employees. Such an analysis of personality and attitudes is vital to the study of organiza- tional behavior.

The first section of the chapter defines and clarifies the concept of personality. The next section is devoted to personality development and the socialization process. This foundation of understanding of the complex personality and how it is developed is fol- lowed by the two major applications to organizational behavior. Specifically, attention is given to the “Big Five” personality traits that have been found to best relate to performance in organizations and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) based on Carl Jung’s per- sonality theory, which has been a very popular personal development and career assess- ment tool. The remaining sections of the chapter then focus on two more important cognitive processes, perception and attitudes. After examining the perceptual process and dimensions, a detailed analysis is first made of the dispositions of positive and negative affectivity, the two most widely recognized attitudes to organizational behavior, job satis- faction and organizational commitment, and finally the more recent relevant construct of prosocial/organizational citizenship behaviors.

THE MEANING OF PERSONALITY

Through the years there has not been universal agreement on the exact meaning of person- ality. Much of the controversy can be attributed to the fact that people in general and those in the behavioral sciences define “personality” from different perspectives. Most people tend to equate personality with social success (i.e., having a “good or popular personality,” or having “a lot of personality”) and to describe personality by a single dominant charac- teristic (i.e., strong, weak, or polite). When it is realized that thousands of words can be

CHAPTER 5 Personality, Perception, and Employee Attitudes

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used to describe personality this way, the definitional problem becomes staggering. Psy- chologists, on the other hand, take a different perspective. For example, the descriptive- adjective approach commonly used by most people plays only a small part. However, scholars also cannot agree on a definition of personality because they operate from differ- ent theoretical bases.

Some of the historically important definitions come from trait theory (observable pat- terns of behavior that last over time), Freud’s psychoanalytic or psychodynamic theory (the unconscious determinants of behavior), and Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow’s human- istic theory (self-actualization and the drive to realize one’s potential). More recently, and the position taken in this chapter, is a more integrative theoretical approach drawing from all the historical theories, but more importantly, the self-concept including nature (heredity and physiological/biological dimensions) and nurture (environmental, developmental dimensions), dispositional traits, the social cognitive interactions between the person and the environment, and the socialization process.

In this text personality will mean how people affect others and how they understand and view themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interaction. How people affect others depends primarily on their external appearance (height, weight, facial features, color, and other physical aspects) and traits. For example, in terms of external appearance, a very tall worker will have an impact on other people different from that of a very short worker. There is also evidence from meta- analysis that there are gender differences in certain personality characteristics.1 However, of more importance to the physiological/biological approach in the study of personality than the external appearance is the role of heredity and the brain.

THE ROLE OF HEREDITY AND THE BRAIN

Although heredity’s role in personality was traditionally downplayed, studies of twins have yielded some interesting findings. Identical twins share the same genetic endowment, but if they are raised apart (say, through separate adoptions), then the similarities and differ- ences can provide insight into the relative contribution of heredity versus environment or nature versus nurture. That is, identical twins (who have the same genetic endowment) raised together (i.e., they have similar environment and developmental experiences) can be compared to the identical twins raised apart (same genetic endowment but different envi- ronment). If the identical twins raised together have the same traits, and this sameness is also found in those raised apart, then the conclusion can be drawn that heredity and not environment plays the largest role. However, if those raised together have similar traits, but those raised apart have significantly different traits, then the importance of the environ- ment must be considered.

Although twin studies in general are open to criticism of political influence and lack of scientific controls,2 most behavioral scientists now agree that genes play a role not only in physical characteristics and the brain, but also in personality. For example, a report by the American Psychological Association concludes, “Studies over the past 20 years on twins and adopted children have firmly established that there is a genetic component to just about every human trait and behavior, including personality, general intelligence and behavior disorders.”3 However, the search for identifying genes that affect the potential for certain diseases4 or personality is very complex and may explain very little. For example, a summary analysis concluded:Co

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Many genes are responsible for various aspects of people’s temperament, and those genes appear to interact with each other in complicated ways that influence several traits at once—and then likely only in very subtle ways, with any one gene likely accounting for only 1 or 2 percent of the variance in a trait.5

In other words, it appears that hundreds of genes do at least slightly influence the person- ality traits, but so does the environment. The debate should not be nature or nurture, but nature and nurture that contributes to one’s personality.6 However, the genes also affect brain functions that in turn affect how people interact with their environment and thus their personalities.

The brain, which some call the last frontier because we still know relatively little about it, may hold more answers for personality than does heredity. Both evolutionary psycholo- gists (those that suggest humans evolve and retain not only physically over the ages, but also psychologically) and neuropsychologists (those that explain psychological character- istics primarily through the brain) have traditionally not played a mainstream role in the study and understanding of personality. In recent years, however, they are gaining increas- ing attention because of rapid advances in their respective fields of study. Evolutionary psychologists are suggesting that humans may be “hardwired” from distant previous gen- erations. As was noted in a Harvard Business Review article:

Although human beings today inhabit a thoroughly modern world of space exploration and virtual realities, they do so with the ingrained mentality of Stone Age hunter-gath- erers … an instinct to fight furiously when threatened, for instance, and a drive to trade information and share secrets. Human beings are, in other words, hardwired. You can take the person out of the Stone Age, but you can’t take the Stone Age out of the person.7

There is also a position being taken on what is called social evolution. This suggests that humanity is evolving along the lines of social phenomena such as trust, collaboration, and competition. This social evolutionary process is explained as follows:

People who are related collaborate on the basis of nepotism. It takes outrageous profit or provocation for someone to do down a relative with whom they share a lot of genes. Trust, though, allows the unrelated to collaborate, by keeping score of who does what when, and punishing cheats.… The human mind, however, seems to have evolved the trick of being able to identify a large number of individuals and to keep score of rela- tions with them.”8

Very few animals (bats being one of the exceptions) have been able to evolve to this type of collaboration and competition.

As to neuropsychology, breakthroughs in brain-scanning technology, called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), allow measurement of brain activity by mapping spe- cific regions that are linked to specialized roles. Although brain dominance theory has been around a long time and has probably been too oversimplified (e.g., the right-side creative brain and the left-side analytical or management brain), there is now general agreement that

The frontal lobes are the part of the brain that anticipates events and weighs the conse- quences of behavior, while deeper brain regions, including the seahorse-shaped hippocampus and the nearby amygdala, are associated with such things as memory, mood and motivation.9Co

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Besides the left and right regions, fMRIs are also able to detect that the amygdala part of the brain has to do with the emotion of the individual. Although there is a very compli- cated interaction between emotions and thinking, personality and/or behavior,10 there is enough evidence for some to conclude the following implications for the workplace:

Recent discoveries in neuroscience reveal that talent and better-quality performance involve not just the frontal lobes—the decision-making brain circuitry that houses intel- lect—but also the amygdala.… In tough economic times, talent and emotional engagement are the only natural competitive advantages.11

The Wall Street Journal even reported a study that indicated those with brain damage impairing their ability to experience emotion made better financial decisions than normal players in a simple investment game.12 It seems that the emotional brain damaged (but nor- mal IQ) participants were more willing to take risks that yielded high payoffs and less likely to react emotionally to losses. They finished the game with significantly more money than the other players. There is also work being done on linking areas of the brain to spe- cific organizational behaviors (e.g., the nucleus accumbens part of the brain responds to money much the way it reacts to sex or cocaine; money is valued for itself and not just for what it can purchase). Other examples include neuroscientific explanations for why employees resist change (i.e., change taps fear receptors in the brain and taxes the brain’s cognitive capacity to learn new ways of doing things13) and research evidence that leaders with high levels of psychological capital (i.e., confidence, hope, optimism, and resiliency, covered in Chapter 7) have different brain activity on a vision task exercise than do those with low psychological capital.14

Although not without criticism,15 there is little question that major inroads are being made in the role that genetics and the brain play both in organizational behavior in general, and personality in particular. However, at present the field of psychology as a whole and organizational behavior itself is still dominated by the developmental, “soft” or nurture side, which is also making significant advances in understanding and application. For example, five personality traits (the so-called Big Five) have emerged from research as being especially related to job performance.16 These specific traits will be given detailed attention after the more theoretical foundation components of personality of self-esteem, person-situation interaction, and socialization are discussed.

Self-Esteem

People’s attempts to understand themselves are called the self-concept in personality theory. The self is a unique product of many interacting parts and may be thought of as the personality viewed from within. This self is particularly relevant to the widely recognized self-esteem and the emerging self-variables of multiple intelligences, emotion, optimism, and, especially, efficacy, which are all relevant to the field of organizational behavior. These and other newly emerging self-variables and positive psychological capacities are given specific attention in Chapter 7.

The more established, recognized self-esteem has to do with people’s self-perceived competence and self-image. Applied to the analysis of personality, the research results have been mixed, and there is growing controversy about the assumed value of self-esteem. For example, one study found that people with high self-esteem handle failure better than those with low self-esteem.17 However, an earlier study found that those with high self- esteem tended to become egotistical when faced with pressure situations18 and may result Co

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in aggressive and even violent behavior when threatened.19 After reviewing the research literature, Kreitner and Kinicki conclude, “High self esteem can be a good thing, but only if like many other human characteristics—such as creativity, intelligence, and per- sistence—it is nurtured and channeled in constructive and ethical ways. Otherwise, it can become antisocial and destructive.”20

Self-esteem has obvious implications for organizational behavior. Although it is con- sidered a global concept, there are attempts to specifically apply it to the organization domain. Called organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), it is defined as the “self-perceived value that individuals have of themselves as organization members acting within an orga- nization context.”21 Those who score high on OBSE view themselves positively, and a meta-analysis found a significant positive relationship with performance and satisfaction on the job.22

Also, both early23 and more recent studies indicate that self-esteem is related to areas such as emotional and behavioral responses and stress of organizational members.24 As has been noted, “Both research and everyday experience confirm that employees with high self-esteem feel unique, competent, secure, empowered, and connected to the people around them.”25 By the same token, as the author of the book, Self-Esteem at Work, notes: “If your self-esteem is low and you aren’t confident in your thinking ability, you are likely to fear decision making, lack negotiation and interpersonal skills and be reluctant or unable to change.”26 One study found that leaders can overcome such self-esteem problems of their people by practicing procedural fairness and rewarding for a job well done.27

As will be noted in Chapter 7, self-esteem is more of a global, relatively fixed trait, whereas other self-variables, such as self-efficacy, are more situation and context specific. There seems little doubt that self-esteem plays an important role in one’s personality, but, as pointed out earlier, the exact nature and impact are still to be determined. For now, the person-situation interaction and socialization are presented to serve as an important part of the social cognitive foundation for the rest of this chapter and for the more specific, posi- tive self-concepts in Chapter 7.

Person-Situation Interaction

The dimensions of enduring traits and the self-concept add to the understanding of the human personality. The person-situation interaction dimension of personality provides fur- ther understanding. Each situation, of course, is different. The differences may seem to be very small on the surface, but when filtered by the person’s cognitive mediating processes such as perception (covered next), they can lead to quite large subjective differences and diverse behavioral outcomes. In particular, this dimension suggests that people are not static, acting the same in all situations, but instead are ever changing and flexible. For example, employees can change depending on the particular situation they are in interac- tion with. For instance, it should be understood that even everyday work experience can change people. Especially today, with organizations transforming and facing a turbulent environment, those that can find, develop, and retain people who can fit into this dynami- cally changing situation will be most successful.28 Specifically, there is evidence that the employee’s personality will influence interpersonal behavior29 and the perception and the outcomes of organizational support.30 The next section dealing with the socialization pro- cess is especially relevant to today’s important person-organization interaction.Co

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The Socialization Process

Study of, and research on, the development of personality has traditionally been an important area for understanding human behavior. Modern developmental psychology does not get into the argument of heredity versus environment or of maturation (changes that result from heredity and physical development) versus learning. The human being con- sists of both physiological and psychological interacting parts. Therefore, heredity, the brain, environment, maturation, and learning all contribute to the human personality.

At least historically, the study of personality attempted to identify specific physiolog- ical and psychological stages that occur in the development of the human personality. This “stage” approach was theoretical in nature. There are many well-known stage theories of personality development. However, as with most aspects of personality, there is little agreement about the exact stages. In fact, a growing number of today’s psychologists con- tend that there are no identifiable stages. Their argument is that personality development consists of a continuous process and the sequence is based largely on the learning opportu- nities available and the socialization process.

There is increasing recognition given to the role of other relevant persons, groups, and, especially, organizations that greatly influence an individual’s personality. This continuous impact from the social environment is commonly called the socialization process. It is especially relevant to organizational behavior because the process is not confined to early childhood; rather, it takes place throughout one’s life. In particular, evidence is accumulat- ing that socialization may be one of the best explanations for why employees behave the way they do in today’s organizations.31 As Edgar Schein notes: “It is high time that some of our managerial knowledge and skill be focused on those forces in the organization envi- ronment which derive from the fact that organizations are social systems which do social- ize their new members. If we do not learn to analyze and control the forces of organizational socialization, we are abdicating one of our primary managerial responsibil- ities.”32 A study found that the socialization tactics that organizations employ can have a positive, long-run impact on the adjustment of newcomers (i.e., lower role conflict and ambiguity, less stress, and higher job satisfaction and commitment)33 and related recent research has found that social processes facilitate job search behavior34 and advancement in management from entry level to upper management.35

Socialization starts with the initial contact between a mother and her new infant. After infancy, other members of the immediate family (father, brothers, and sisters), close rela- tives and family friends, and then the social group (peers, school friends, and members of the work group) play influential roles. As the accompanying OB in Action: Using Informa- tion Technologies to Nurture Relationships indicates, the way these socialization processes are being done is changing, but the impact is still dramatic. However, of particular interest to the study of organizational behavior is Schein’s idea that the organization itself also con- tributes to socialization.36 He points out that the process includes the learning of those val- ues, norms, and behavior patterns that, from the organization’s and the work group’s points of view, are necessary for any new organization member.

Specific techniques of socializing new employees would include the use of mentors or role models, orientation and training programs, reward systems, and career planning. Spe- cific steps that can lead to successful organizational socialization would include the follow- ing:

1. Provide a challenging first job 2. Provide relevant trainingCo

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3. Provide timely and consistent feedback 4. Select a good first supervisor to be in charge of socialization 5. Design a relaxed orientation program 6. Place new recruits in work groups with high morale37

Such deliberate socialization strategies have tremendous potential impact on socialization. Evidence shows that those new employees attending a socialization training program are indeed more socialized than those who do not38 and that socialization tactics influence per- ceived organizational support, which has an impact on voluntary turnover and organiza- tional commitment.39

In summary, personality is very diverse and complex. It incorporates almost every- thing covered in this text, and more. As defined, personality is the whole person and is con- cerned with external appearance and traits, self, and situational interactions. Probably the best statement on personality was made many years ago by Kluckhohn and Murray, who said that, to some extent, a person’s personality is like all other people’s, like some other people’s, and like no other people’s.40

The “Big Five” Personality Traits

Although personality traits, long-term predispositions for behavior, have been gener- ally downplayed and even totally discounted, in recent years there is now considerable sup- port for a five-factor trait-based theory of personality. Many years ago no less than 18,000 words were found to describe personality. Even after combining words with similar mean- ings, there still remained 171 personality traits.41 Obviously, such a huge number of per- sonality traits is practically unusable, so further reduction analysis found five core personality traits. Called the Five-Factor Model (FFM),42 or in the field of organizational behavior and human resource management, the “Big Five,” these traits have held up as accounting for personality in many analyses over the years43 and even across cultures.44

Table 5.1 identifies the Big Five and their major characteristics. Importantly, not only is there now considerable agreement on what are the core personality trait predispositions, but there is also accumulated research that these five best predict performance in the work- place.45 The Big Five have also been extended through meta-analytic studies to also demonstrate a positive relationship with performance motivation46 (goal setting, expec- tancy, and self-efficacy, all given detailed attention in later chapters) and job satisfaction.47

Although the five traits are largely independent factors of a personality, like primary col- ors, they can be mixed in countless proportions and with other characteristics to yield a unique personality whole. However, also like colors, one may dominate in describing an individual’s personality.

TABLE 5.1. The “Big Five” Personality Traits

Core Traits Descriptive Characteristics of High Scorers

Conscientiousness Dependable, hardworking, organized, self-disciplined, persistent, responsible

Emotional stability Calm, secure, happy, unworried

Agreeableness Cooperative, warm, caring, good-natured, courteous, trusting

Extraversion Sociable, outgoing, talkative, assertive, gregarious

Openness to experience Curious, intellectual, creative, cultured, artistically sensitive, flexible, imaginative

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The real value of the Big Five to organizational behavior is that it does bring back the importance of predispositional traits,48 and these traits have been clearly shown to relate to job performance. Importantly, it should also be noted that these five traits are quite stable. Although there is not total agreement, most personality theorists would tend to agree that after about 30 years of age, the individual’s personality profile will change little over time.49 This does not intend to imply that one or two of the Big Five provide an ideal per- sonality profile for employees over their whole career, because different traits are needed for different jobs. The key is still to find the right fit.50 The following sections examine the research to date on the relationships of the various Big Five traits to dimensions of perfor- mance in organizations.

The Positive Impact of Conscientiousness

There is general agreement that conscientiousness has the strongest positive correla- tion (about .3) with job performance. From this level of correlation (1.0 would be perfect), it should be noted that less than 10 percent (the correlation squared, or R2) of the perfor- mance in the studies is accounted for by conscientiousness. Yet, it should also be noted that this is still significant and conscientious employees may provide a major competitive advantage. As a meta-analysis concluded, “individuals who are dependable, persistent, goal directed, and organized tend to be higher performers on virtually any job; viewed neg- atively, those who are careless, irresponsible, low achievement striving and impulsive tend to be lower performers on virtually any job.”51

Put in relation to other organizational behavior areas as a personality trait per se, con- scientious employees set higher goals for themselves, have higher performance expecta- tions, and respond well to job enrichment (take on more responsibility, covered in Chapter 6) and empowerment strategies of human resource management. As would be expected, research indicates that those who are conscientious are less likely to be absent from work,52

and a study found in international human resource management that conscientiousness of expatriates related positively to the rating of their foreign assignment performance.53 Yet, there are also recent studies with nonsupporting and mixed results pointing to the complex- ity of this personality trait. For example, in a recent study conscientiousness was found not to be influential in determining managerial performance and in another study of Middle Eastern expatriate managers, conscientiousness was related to home-country ratings of the expats’ performance, but not the host-country ratings of the same expats.54 In addition, studies had indicated that the individual’s ability moderates the relationship between con- scientiousness and performance (positive for high ability but zero or even negative for low ability), but a more recent study found no such moderator.55 Another study found the rela- tionship of conscientiousness to job performance was strong when job satisfaction was low, but was relatively weak when satisfaction was high.56

Applied to peer evaluations, as hypothesized, a study found the raters’ conscientious- ness was negatively related with the level of the rating. In other words, conscientious raters did not give inflated evaluations, but those with low conscientiousness did.57 Such multi- plicative relationships with variables such as culture, ability, and job satisfaction indicate, like other psychological variables, that conscientiousness is complex and is certainly not the only answer for job performance. This has led to a recent research stream that supports the hypothesized interactive effects between conscientiousness and extraversion58 and agreeableness59 on performance and the interaction of conscientiousness and openness to experience and creative behavior.60 The same is true of research on the mediating and moderating effects of conscientiousness when influenced by various organizational behav- ior dynamics.61 In other words, without getting to the depth of these analyses, it can simply Co

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be said that there is considerable complexity involved with the impact of the personality trait of conscientiousness on various work-related variables. However, this is one area of personality where there is enough research evidence to conclude that conscientiousness should be given attention in understanding the impact that personality traits can have on job performance, job satisfaction, and work motivation, and pragmatically for personnel selec- tion for most jobs.

The Impact of the Other Traits

Although conscientiousness has been found to have the strongest consistent relation- ship with performance and thus has received the most research attention, the remaining four traits also have some interesting findings. For example, a large study including partic- ipants from several European countries, many occupational groups, and multiple methods of measuring performance found both conscientiousness and emotional stability related to all the measures and occupations.62 Yet, the absenteeism study found that conscientious- ness had a desirable inverse relationship: but, undesirably, the higher the extraversion trait the more absent the employee tended to be.63

The other traits have a more selective but still logical impact. For example, those with high extraversion tend to be associated with management and sales success; those with high emotional stability tend to be more effective in stressful situations; those with high agreeableness tend to handle customer relations and conflict more effectively; and those open to experience tend to have job training proficiency and make better decisions in a training problem solving simulation.64 Another study found that those with a strategic management style were most characterized by conscientiousness and openness to experi- ence, while those with a strong interpersonal management style were most characterized by extraversion and openness.65 Interestingly, with groups rather than individuals becoming more important in today’s workplace, the Big Five may also be predictive of team perfor- mance. A study found that the higher the average scores of team members on the traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability, the better their teams performed.66 In other words, depending on the situation, all the Big Five traits should be given attention in the study and application of organizational behavior.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Whereas the Big Five has recently emerged from considerable basic research and has generally been demonstrated to significantly relate to job performance, the MBTI is based on a very old theory, has mixed at best research support,67 but is widely used and very pop- ular in real-world career counseling, team building, conflict management, and analyzing management styles.68 The theory goes back to pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in the 1920s. He felt people could be typed into extraverts and introverts and that they had two basic mental processes—perception and judgment. He then further divided perception into sensing and intuiting and judgment into thinking and feeling. This yields four personality dimensions or traits: (1) introversion/extraversion, (2) perceiving/judging, (3) sensing/ intuition, and (4) thinking/feeling. He felt that although people had all four of these dimen- sions in common, they differ in the combination of their preferences of each. Importantly, he made the point that one’s preferences were not necessarily better than another’s, only different.

About 20 years after Jung developed his theoretical types, in the 1940s the mother- daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Myers developed about a 100-item Co

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5 personality test asking participants how they usually feel or act in particular situations in order to measure the preferences on the four pairs of traits yielding 16 distinct types. Called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or simply MBTI, the questions relate to how people pre- fer to focus their energies (extraversion vs. introversion); give attention and collect infor- mation (sensing vs. intuiting); process and evaluate information and make decisions (thinking vs. feeling); and orient themselves to the outside world (judging vs. perceiving). Table 5.2 summarizes the characteristics of the four major dimensions, which in combina- tion yield the 16 types. For example, the ESTJ is extraverted, sensing, thinking, and judg- ing. Because this type likes to interact with others (E); sees the world realistically (S); makes decisions objectively and decisively (T); and likes structure, schedules, and order (J), this would be a manager type. The MBTI Atlas indicates that most managers studied were indeed ESTJs.

As Jung emphasized when formulating his theory, there are no good or bad types. This is a major reason the MBTI is such a psychologically nonthreatening, commonly used (mil- lions take it every year) personality inventory. Although the MBTI has shown to have reli- ability and validity as a measure of identifying Jung’s personality types69 and predicting occupational choice (e.g., those high on intuition tend to prefer careers in advertising, the arts, and teaching), there still is not enough research support to base selection decisions or predict job performance.70 Yet, the use of MBTI by numerous firms such as AT&T,

TABLE 5.2. The Jung Theory Dimensions and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators

Where do you get your energy? Extraversion (E)_____________________________________________________________________________________ Introversion (I)

Outgoing Quiet

Interacting Concentrating

Speaks, then thinks Thinks then speaks

Gregarious Reflective

What do you pay attention to and collect information on? Sensing (S) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Intuiting (N)

Practical General

Details Possibilities

Concrete Theoretical

Specific Abstract

How do you evaluate and make decisions? Thinking (T) ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Feeling (F)

Analytical Subjective

Head Heart

Rules Circumstance

Justice Mercy

How do you orient yourself to the outside world? Judging (J)_________________________________________________________________________________________ Perceiving (P)

Structured Flexible

Time oriented Open ended

Decisive Exploring

Organized Spontaneous

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Exxon, and Honeywell for their management development programs and Hewlett-Packard for team building seems justified. It can be an effective point of departure for discussion of similarities and differences and useful for personal development. However, like any psy- chological measure, the MBTI can also be misused. As one comprehensive analysis con- cluded, “Some inappropriate uses include labeling one another, providing a convenient excuse that they simply can’t work with someone else, and avoiding responsibility for their own personal development with respect to working with others and becoming more flexi- ble. One’s type is not an excuse for inappropriate behavior.”71

THE PERCEPTION PROCESS

Besides personality covered so far, another important cognitive, personal construct is one’s perceptual process. The key to understanding perception is to recognize that it is a unique interpretation of the situation, not an exact recording of it. In short, perception is a very complex cognitive process that yields a unique picture of the world, a picture that may be quite different from reality. Applied to organizational behavior, an employee’s perception can be thought of as a filter. Because perception is largely learned, and no one has the same learnings and experience, then every employee has a unique filter, and the same situations/ stimuli may produce very different reactions and behaviors. Some analyses of employee behavior place a lot of weight on this filter:

Your filter tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore; which to love and which to hate. It creates your innate motivations—are you competitive, altruistic, or ego driven? … It creates in you all of your distinct patterns of thought, feeling, and behav- ior.… Your filter, more than your race, sex, age, or nationality, is you.72

Recognition of the difference between this filtered, perceptual world and the real world is vital to the understanding of organizational behavior. A specific example would be the universal assumption made by managers that associates always want promotions, when, in fact, many really feel psychologically forced to accept a promotion.73 Managers seldom attempt to find out, and sometimes associates themselves do not know, whether the promotion should be offered. In other words, the perceptual world of the manager is quite different from the perceptual world of the associate, and both may be very different from reality. One of the biggest problems that new organizational leaders must overcome are the sometimes faulty or negative perceptions of them. If this is the case, what can be done about it? The best answer seems to be that a better understanding of the concepts involved should be developed. Direct applications and techniques should logically follow complete understanding. The place to start is to clearly understand the difference between sensation and perception and have a working knowledge of the major cognitive subprocesses of per- ception.

Sensation Versus Perception

There is usually a great deal of misunderstanding about the relationship between sen- sation and perception. Behavioral scientists generally agree that people’s “reality” (the world around them) depends on their senses. However, the raw sensory input is not enough. They must also process these sensory data and make sense out of them in order to Co

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understand the world around them. Thus, the starting point in the study of perception should clarify the relationship between perception and sensation.

The physical senses are considered to be vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. There are many other so-called sixth senses. However, none of these sixth senses, such as intu- ition, are fully accepted by psychologists. The five senses are constantly bombarded by numerous stimuli that are both outside and inside the body. Examples of outside stimuli include light waves, sound waves, mechanical energy of pressure, and chemical energy from objects that one can smell and taste. Inside stimuli include energy generated by mus- cles, food passing through the digestive system, and glands secreting behavior-influencing hormones. These examples indicate that sensation deals chiefly with very elementary behavior that is determined largely by physiological functioning. Importantly, however, researchers now know that ears, eyes, fingers, and the nose are only way stations, transmit- ting signals that are then processed by the central nervous system. As one molecular biol- ogist declares, “The nose doesn’t smell—the brain does.”74 In this way, the human being uses the senses to experience color, brightness, shape, loudness, pitch, heat, odor, and taste.

Perception is more complex and much broader than sensation. The perceptual process or filter can be defined as a complicated interaction of selection, organization, and interpre- tation. Although perception depends largely on the senses for raw data, the cognitive pro- cess filters, modifies, or completely changes these data. A simple illustration may be seen by looking at one side of a stationary object, such as a statue or a tree. By slowly turning the eyes to the other side of the object, the person probably senses that the object is moving. Yet the person perceives the object as stationary. The perceptual process overcomes the sensual process, and the person “sees” the object as stationary. In other words, the percep- tual process adds to, and subtracts from, the “real” sensory world. The following are some organizational examples that point out the difference between sensation and perception:

1. The division manager purchases a program that she thinks is best, not the program that the software engineer says is best.

2. An associate’s answer to a question is based on what he heard the boss say, not on what the boss actually said.

3. The same team member may be viewed by one colleague as a very hard worker and by another as a slacker.

4. The same product may be viewed by the design team to be of high quality and by a customer to be of low quality.

Subprocesses of Perception

The existence of several subprocesses gives evidence of the complexity and the inter- active nature of perception. Figure 5.1 shows how these subprocesses relate to one another. The first important subprocess is the stimulus or situation that is present. Perception begins when a person is confronted with a stimulus or a situation. This confrontation may be with the immediate sensual stimulation or with the total physical and sociocultural environment. An example is the employee who is confronted with his or her supervisor or with the total formal organizational environment. Either one or both may initiate the employee’s percep- tual process. In other words, this represents the stimulus situation interacting with the per- son.

In addition to the situation-person interaction, there are the internal cognitive processes of registration, interpretation, and feedback. During the registration phenomenon, the physiological (sensory and neural) mechanisms are affected; the physiological ability to Co

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5 hear and see will affect perception. Interpretation is the most significant cognitive aspect of perception. The other psychological processes will affect the interpretation of a situation. For example, in an organization, employees’ interpretations of a situation are largely depen- dent on their learning and motivation and their personality. An example would be the kin- esthetic feedback (sensory impressions from muscles) that helps manufacturing workers perceive the speed of materials moving by them in the production process. An example of psychological feedback that may influence an employee’s perception is the supervisor’s raised eyebrow or a change in voice inflection. Research has shown that both facial expres- sions and the specific situation will influence perceptions of certain emotions, such as fear, anger, or pain.75 The behavioral termination of perception is the reaction or behavior, either overt or covert, which is necessary if perception is to be considered a behavioral event and thus an important part of organizational behavior. As a result of perception, an employee may move rapidly or slowly (overt behavior) or make a self-evaluation (covert behavior).

As shown in Figure 5.1, all these perceptual subprocesses are compatible with the social cognitive conceptual framework presented in Chapter 1. The stimulus or environ- mental situation is the first part; registration, interpretation, and feedback occur within the cognitive processes of the person; then there is the resulting behavior itself; and the envi- ronmental consequences of this behavior make up the final part. The subprocesses of reg- istration, interpretation, and feedback are internal cognitive processes that are unobservable, but the situation, behavior, and environmental consequences indicate that perception is indeed related to behavior. Recent summaries of research using the meta- analysis technique have found empirical support for the relationship between cognitive variables such as perception and behaviors.76

SOCIAL PERCEPTION

Although the senses and subprocess provide understanding of the overall perceptual pro- cess, most relevant to the study of organizational behavior is social perception, which is

FIGURE 5.1. The Subprocesses of Perception

STIMULUS OR SITUATION PERSON

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT Sensual Stimulation

Physical Environment: Office Factory floor Research laboratory Store Climate etc.

Sociocultural Environment: Management styles Values Discrimination etc.

CONFRONTATION of specific stimulus (e.g., supervisor or

new procedure)

REGISTRATION of stimulus (e.g.,

sensory and neural mechanisms)

INTERPRETATION of stimulus (e.g.,

motivation, learning, and personality)

FEEDBACK for clarification (e.g.,

kinesthetic or psychological)

BEHAVIOR (e.g., overt such as

rushing off or covert such as an attitude)

CONSEQUENCE (e.g., reinforcement/ punishment or some

organizational outcome)

BEHAVIOR

CONSEQUENCES

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directly concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals: how we get to know others.

Characteristics of Perceiver and Perceived

A summary of classic research findings on some specific characteristics of the per- ceiver and the perceived reveals a profile of the perceiver as follows:

1. Knowing oneself makes it easier to see others accurately. 2. One’s own characteristics affect the characteristics one is likely to see in others. 3. People who accept themselves are more likely to be able to see favorable aspects of

other people. 4. Accuracy in perceiving others is not a single skill.77

These four characteristics greatly influence how a person perceives others in the envi- ronmental situation. Interestingly, this classic profile is very similar to our very new approach that we call an “authentic leader.”78 Covered in detail in the leadership chapter at the end of the book, for now it can be simply said that authentic leaders are those who know themselves (are self-aware and true to themselves) and true to others. In other words, the recognition and understanding of basic perceptual profiles of social perception can contrib- ute to complex processes such as authentic leadership.

There are also certain characteristics of the person being perceived that influence social perception. Research has shown that:

1. The status of the person perceived will greatly influence others’ perception of the per- son.

2. The person being perceived is usually placed into categories to simplify the viewer’s perceptual activities. Two common categories are status and role.

3. The visible traits of the person perceived will greatly influence others’ perception of the person.79

These characteristics of the perceiver and the perceived suggest the complexity of social perception. Organizational participants must realize that their perceptions of another person are greatly influenced by their own characteristics and the characteristics of the other person. For example, if a manager has high self-esteem and the other person is pleas- ant and comes from the home office, then the manager will likely perceive this other person in a positive, favorable manner. On the other hand, if the manager has low self-esteem and the other person is an arrogant salesperson, the manager will likely perceive this other per- son in a negative, unfavorable manner. Such attributions that people make of others play a vital role in their social perceptions and resulting behavior.

Participants in formal organizations are constantly perceiving one another. Managers are perceiving workers, workers are perceiving managers, line personnel are perceiving staff personnel, staff personnel are perceiving the line personnel, frontline employees are perceiving customers, customers are perceiving frontline employees, and on and on. There are numerous complex factors that enter into such social perception, but most important are the problems associated with stereotyping and the halo effect.Co

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Stereotyping

The term stereotype refers to the tendency to perceive another person (hence social perception) as belonging to a single class or category. The word itself is derived from the typographer’s word for a printing plate made from previously composed type. In 1922, Walter Lippmann applied the word to perception. Since then, stereotyping has become a frequently used term to describe perceptual errors. In particular, it is employed in analyzing prejudice. Not commonly acknowledged is the fact that stereotyping may attribute favor- able or unfavorable traits to the person being perceived. Most often a person is put into a stereotype because the perceiver knows only the overall category to which the person belongs. However, because each individual is unique, the real traits of the person will gen- erally be quite different from those the stereotype would suggest.

Stereotyping greatly influences social perception in today’s organizations. Common stereotyped groups include managers, supervisors, knowledge workers, union members, young people, old people, minorities, women, white-and blue-collar workers, and all the various functional and staff specialists, for example, accountants, salespeople, computer programmers, and engineers. There may be a general consensus about the traits possessed by the members of these categories. Yet in reality there is often a discrepancy between the agreed-upon traits of each category and the actual traits of the members. In other words, not all engineers carry laptop computers and are coldly rational, nor are all human resource managers do-gooders who are trying to keep workers happy. On the contrary, there are individual differences and a great deal of variability among members of these and all other groups. In spite of this, other organization members commonly make blanket perceptions and behave accordingly. For example, one analysis noted that a major problem General Motors has is the institutionalized set of managerial beliefs about its customers, workers, foreign competitors, and the government. These perceptions cause the GM leadership to blame their problems on the famous stereotyped “them” instead of recognizing the need for fundamental corporate culture change.80 There is also research indicating that long expo- sure to negative stereotypes may result in the members having an inferiority anxiety or lowered expectations.81 There are numerous other research studies82 and common, every- day examples that point out stereotyping and its problems that occur in organizational life.

The Halo Effect

The halo effect in social perception is very similar to stereotyping. Whereas in stereo- typing the person is perceived according to a single category, under the halo effect the per- son is perceived on the basis of one trait. Halo is often discussed in performance appraisal when a rater makes an error in judging a person’s total personality and/or performance on the basis of a single positive trait such as intelligence, appearance, dependability, or coop- erativeness. Whatever the single trait is, it may override all other traits in forming the per- ception of the person. For example, a person’s physical appearance or dress may override all other characteristics in making a selection decision or in appraising the person’s perfor- mance. The opposite is sometimes called the “horns effect” where an individual is down- graded because of a single negative characteristic or incident.83

The halo effect problem has been given considerable attention in research on perfor- mance appraisal. For example, a comprehensive review of the performance appraisal liter- ature found that halo effect was the dependent variable in over a third of the studies and was found to be a major problem affecting appraisal accuracy.84 The current thinking on the halo effect can be summarized from the extensive research literature as follows:Co

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1. It is a common rater error. 2. It has both true and illusory components. 3. It has led to inflated correlations among rating dimensions and is due to the influence

of a general evaluation and specific judgments. 4. It has negative consequences and should be avoided or removed.85

Like all the other aspects of the psychological process of perception discussed in this chapter, the halo effect has important implications for the study and eventual understand- ing of organizational behavior. Unfortunately, even though the halo effect is one of the lon- gest recognized and most pervasive problems associated with applications such as performance appraisal in the field of organizational behavior, a critical analysis of the con- siderable research concludes that we still do not know much about the impact of the halo effect86 and attempts at solving the problem have not yet been very successful.87 In other words, overcoming perceptual problems such as stereotyping and the halo effect remains an important challenge for effective human resource management.

WORK-RELATED ATTITUDES: PA/NA

Besides the traditional recognition given to personality and perception in the cognitive domain, in the field of organizational behavior more recent and directly relevant is the attention given to affective (feelings) dispositions as antecedents of important work-related attitudes such as job satisfaction and to lesser extent organizational commitment and orga- nizational citizenship. In particular, the dispositions of positive affectivity (PA) and nega- tive affectivity (NA) have been found to be important antecedents to attitudes about one’s job. As explained by George,88 NA reflects a personality disposition to experience nega- tive emotional states; those with high NA tend to feel nervous, tense, anxious, worried, upset, and distressed. Accordingly, those with high NA are more likely to experience neg- ative affective states—they are more likely to have a negative attitude toward themselves, others, and the world around them. There is accumulating research supporting this biasing effect of NA.89 For example, one study found that employees high in negative affectivity more often perceived themselves as victims and thus open themselves up to be more likely targets of coworkers’ aggressive actions.90 Another study found NA moderated the link between favorable performance appraisal feedback and job attitudes.91

Those with high PA have the opposite disposition and tend to have an overall sense of well-being, to see themselves as pleasurably and effectively engaged, and to experience positive attitudes. Whether PA is the bipolar opposite and independent of NA is still the subject of debate and interpretation of research results.92 People do not necessarily move between opposite mood states, but can be both happy and unhappy. However, most of the time there are swings in mood, that is, NA to PA or PA to NA. Research finds that PAs tend to perform better,93 are less absent from work,94 and are more satisfied,95 whereas NAs may experience more stress.96 There is even evidence that teams with a positive affective tone (i.e., the average PA of members is high) are more effective than teams with a nega- tive affective tone.97 In other words, one’s mood or affective disposition may become a self-fulfilling prophecy as far as organization outcomes are concerned.

Similar to the Big Five personality traits, the PA/NA attitudes have reached such a level of development that increasing research attention is being given to refining the con- cepts. In recent years studies focus on how affectivity is determined (e.g., through the con- gruence between employee preferences and organizational human resources practices98 or Co

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the impact of self-, internally generated information on NA99) and on multiple levels of analysis.100 Besides the interest in the dispositions of PA/NA, over the years there is major attention given to job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES

Specific employee attitudes relating to job satisfaction and organizational commitment are of major interest to the field of organizational behavior and the practice of human resource management. Whereas the above discussion of positive and negative affectivity are consid- ered to be antecedents of work attitudes, more directly job satisfaction focuses on employ- ees’ attitudes toward their job and organizational commitment focuses on their attitudes toward the overall organization. The more traditionally recognized job satisfaction is first discussed. Next is the discussion of the widely recognized attitude of organizational com- mitment. Finally, the more recent prosocial or organizational citizenship behaviors are pre- sented to end this chapter.

What Is Meant by Job Satisfaction?

Locke gives a comprehensive definition of job satisfaction as involving cognitive, affective, and evaluative reactions or attitudes and states it is “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience.”101 Job satis- faction is a result of employees’ perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important. It is generally recognized in the organizational behavior field that job satisfaction is the most important and frequently studied employee attitude.

Although theoretical analyses have criticized job satisfaction as being too narrow con- ceptually,102 there are three generally accepted dimensions to job satisfaction. First, job satisfaction is an emotional response to a job situation. As such, it cannot be seen; it can only be inferred. Second, job satisfaction is often determined by how well outcomes meet or exceed expectations. For example, if organizational participants feel that they are work- ing much harder than others in the department but are receiving fewer rewards, they will probably have a negative attitude toward their work, boss, and/or coworkers. They will be dissatisfied. On the other hand, if they feel they are being treated very well and are being paid equitably, they are likely to have a positive attitude toward the job. They will be job- satisfied. Third, job satisfaction represents several related attitudes. Through the years five job dimensions have been identified to represent the most important characteristics of a job about which employees have affective responses. These are:

1. The work itself. The extent to which the job provides the individual with interesting tasks, opportunities for learning, and the chance to accept responsibility

2. Pay. The amount of financial remuneration that is received and the degree to which this is viewed as equitable vis-á-vis that of others in the organization

3. Promotion opportunities. The chances for advancement in the organization 4. Supervision. The abilities of the supervisor to provide technical assistance and behav-

ioral support 5. Coworkers. The degree to which fellow workers are technically proficient and

socially supportive103Co py ri gh t © 2 01 5. I nf or ma ti on A ge P ub li sh in g. A ll r ig ht s re se rv ed . Ma y no t be r ep ro du ce d in a ny f or m wi th ou t pe rm is si on f ro m th e pu bl is he r, e xc ep t fa ir u se s pe rm it te d un de r

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These five dimensions were formulated many years ago and have been widely used to mea- sure job satisfaction over the years, and a meta-analysis confirmed their construct valid- ity.104

Influences on Job Satisfaction

There are a number of factors that influence job satisfaction. For example, one study even found that if college students’ majors coincided with their jobs, this relationship pre- dicted subsequent job satisfaction.105 However, the main influences can be summarized along the above five dimensions.

The Work Itself

The content of the work itself is a major source of satisfaction. For example, research related to the job characteristics approach to job design, covered in the next chapter, shows that feedback from the job itself and autonomy are two of the major job-related motiva- tional factors. Research has found that such job characteristics and job complexity mediate the relationship between personality and job satisfaction,106 and if the creative require- ments of employees’ jobs are met, then they tend to be satisfied.107 At a more pragmatic level, some of the most important ingredients of a satisfying job uncovered by surveys over the years include interesting and challenging work, and one survey found that career devel- opment (not necessarily promotion) was most important to both younger and older employ- ees.108

Also in line with Chapter 2 on diversity and ethics, a study found work satisfaction is associated with equal opportunities and family-friendly and anti-harassment practices.109

Firms on the annual Fortune list of “100 Best Companies to Work For,” such as VSP, the nation’s largest provider of eye care benefits, which is known for innovative human resources practices, have sustained high levels of employee satisfaction with work.110

Pay

Chapter 4 gave detailed attention to both pay and benefits. Wages and salaries are rec- ognized to be a significant but cognitively complex111 and multidimensional factor in job satisfaction.112 Money not only helps people attain their basic needs but is also instrumen- tal in providing upper-level need satisfaction. Employees often see pay as a reflection of how management views their contribution to the organization. Fringe benefits are also important, but they are not as influential. One reason undoubtedly is that most employees do not even know how much they are receiving in benefits. Moreover, most tend to under- value these benefits because they do not realize their significant monetary value.113 How- ever, research indicates that if employees are allowed some flexibility in choosing the type of benefits they prefer within a total package, called a flexible or cafeteria benefits plan, there is a significant increase in both benefits satisfaction and overall job satisfaction.114

Promotions

Promotional opportunities seem to have a varying effect on job satisfaction. This is because promotions take a number of different forms and have a variety of accompanying rewards. For example, individuals who are promoted on the basis of seniority often expe- rience job satisfaction but not as much as those who are promoted on the basis of perfor-Co

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mance. Additionally, a promotion with a 10 percent salary raise is typically not as satisfying as one with a 20 percent salary raise. These differences help explain why execu- tive promotions may be more satisfying than promotions that occur at the lower levels of organizations. Also, in recent years with the flattening of organizations and accompanying empowerment strategies, promotion in the traditional sense of climbing the hierarchical corporate ladder of success is no longer available as it once was. Employees operating in the new paradigm, as outlined in Part One of this text, know that not only are traditional promotions not available, but as was pointed out earlier, they may not even be desired. A positive work environment and opportunities to grow intellectually and broaden their skill base has for many become more important than promotion opportunities.115

Supervision

Supervision is another moderately important source of job satisfaction. Chapter 14 discusses the impact of leadership skills. For now, however, it can be said that there seem to be two dimensions of supervisory style that affect job satisfaction. One is employee-cen- teredness, which is measured by the degree to which a supervisor takes a personal interest and cares about the employee. It commonly is manifested in ways such as checking to see how well the employee is doing, providing advice and assistance to the individual, and communicating with the associate on a personal as well as an official level. American employees generally complain that their supervisors don’t do a very good job on these dimensions. There is considerable empirical evidence that one of the major reasons employees give for quitting a company is that their supervisor does not care about them.116

The other dimension is participation or influence, as illustrated by managers who allow their people to participate in decisions that affect their own jobs. In most cases, this approach leads to higher job satisfaction. For example, a meta-analysis concluded that par- ticipation does have a positive effect on job satisfaction. A participative climate created by the supervisor seems to have a more substantial effect on workers’ satisfaction than does participation in a specific decision.117

Work Group

The nature of the work group or team will have an effect on job satisfaction. Friendly, cooperative coworkers or team members are a modest source of job satisfaction to individ- ual employees. The work group, especially a “tight” team, serves as a source of support, comfort, advice, and assistance to the individual members. Research indicates that groups requiring considerable interdependence among the members to get the job done will have higher satisfaction.118 A “good” work group or effective team makes the job more enjoy- able. However, this factor is not essential to job satisfaction. On the other hand, if the reverse conditions exist—the people are difficult to get along with—this factor may have a negative effect on job satisfaction. Also, cross-cultural research finds that if members are resistant to teams in general and self-managed teams in particular, they will be less satis- fied than if they welcome being part of teams.119

Working Conditions

Working conditions have a modest effect on job satisfaction. If the working conditions are good (clean, attractive surroundings, for instance), the personnel will find it easier to carry out their jobs. If the working conditions are poor (hot, noisy surroundings, for exam- ple), personnel will find it more difficult to get things done. In other words, the effect of Co

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working conditions on job satisfaction is similar to that of the work group. If things are good, there may or may not be a job satisfaction problem; if things are poor, there very likely will be.

Most people do not give working conditions a great deal of thought unless they are extremely bad. Additionally, when there are complaints about working conditions, these sometimes are really nothing more than manifestations of other problems. For example, a manager may complain that his office has not been properly cleaned by the night crew, but his anger is actually a result of a meeting he had with the boss earlier in the day in which he was given a poor performance evaluation. However, in recent years, because of the increased diversity of the workforce, working conditions have taken on new importance. Chapter 2 discussed ways in which today’s organizations are trying to make conditions more supportive and more nondiscriminatory/nonthreatening. There is also evidence of a positive relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction,120 and that the direction of causality is that people who are satisfied with their lives tend to find more satisfaction in their work.121

Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

To society as a whole as well as from an individual employee’s standpoint, job satis- faction in and of itself is a desirable outcome. However, from a pragmatic managerial and organizational effectiveness perspective, it is important to know how, if at all, satisfaction relates to desired outcome variables. For instance, if job satisfaction is high, will the employees perform better and the organization be more effective? If job satisfaction is low, will there be performance problems and ineffectiveness? This question has been asked by both researchers and practitioners through the years. There are no simple answers, and the results range from weak to strong. In examining the outcomes of job satisfaction, it is important to break down the analysis into a series of specific outcomes. The following sec- tions examine the most important of these.

Satisfaction and Performance

Do satisfied employees perform better than their less-satisfied counterparts? This “sat- isfaction-performance controversy” has raged over the years. Although most people assume a positive relationship, the research to date has been mixed. About 25 years ago, the studies assessed by a meta-analysis indicated a weak (.17 best-estimate correlation) relationship between satisfaction and performance.122 However, conceptual, methodolog- ical, empirical, and practical analyses have questioned and argued against these weak results.123 So, more recently a sophisticated meta-analysis conducted by Tim Judge and his colleagues on 312 samples with a combined N of 54,417 found the mean true correlation to be .30.124 This latest analysis thus shows a much stronger relationship between employee job satisfaction and performance, but still not greater than the Big Five person- ality trait of conscientiousness discussed earlier in this chapter nor as great as the meta-ana- lytic findings of other psychological constructs such as the relationship between self- efficacy (covered in Chapter 7) and performance (.38).125

Perhaps the best conclusion about satisfaction and performance is that there is defi- nitely a positive relationship, but probably not as great as conventional wisdom assumed concerning happy workers as productive workers. Although there is recent supporting research evidence on the causal direction (that correlational studies do not permit), show- ing satisfaction influences performance rather than vice versa,126 the relationship may Co

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even be more complex than others in organizational behavior. For example, there seem to be many possible moderating variables, the most important of which are rewards. If people receive rewards they feel are equitable, they will be satisfied, and this is likely to result in greater performance effort.127 Also, research evidence indicates that satisfaction may not necessarily lead to individual performance improvement but does lead to departmental128

and organizational-level improvement.129 A meta-analysis of such business units (7,939 in 36 companies) found that when satisfaction is defined and measured by employee engage- ment, there is a significant relationship with performance outcomes of productivity, cus- tomer satisfaction, and even profit.130 In total, job satisfaction should not be considered the endpoint in human performance, but there is accumulating evidence that it should, along with the other dimensions discussed throughout this text, play an important role in the study and application of organizational behavior.

Satisfaction and Turnover

Does high employee job satisfaction result in low turnover? Research has uncovered a moderately inverse relationship between satisfaction and turnover.131 High job satisfaction will not, in and of itself, keep turnover low, but it does seem to help. On the other hand, if there is considerable job dissatisfaction, there is likely to be high turnover. Obviously, other variables enter into an employee’s decision to quit besides job satisfaction. For exam- ple, age, tenure in the organization, and commitment to the organization (covered in the next major section), may play a role. Some people cannot see themselves working any- where else, so they remain regardless of how dissatisfied they feel. Another factor is the general economy. When things in the economy are going well and there is little unemploy- ment, typically there will be an increase in turnover because people will begin looking for better opportunities with other organizations. Even if they are satisfied, many people are willing to leave if the opportunities elsewhere promise to be better. On the other hand, if jobs are tough to get and downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions are occurring, as in recent years, dissatisfied employees will voluntarily stay where they are. Research findings verify that unemployment rates do directly affect turnover.132 On an overall basis, however, it is accurate to say that job satisfaction is important in employee turnover. Although absolutely no turnover is not necessarily beneficial to the organization, a low turnover rate is usually desirable because of the considerable training costs and the drawbacks of inexperience, plus the loss of the tacit knowledge that those who leave take with them.

Satisfaction and Absenteeism

Research has only demonstrated a weak negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism.133 As with turnover, many other variables enter into the decision to stay home besides satisfaction with the job. For example, there are moderating variables such as the degree to which people feel that their jobs are important. For example, research among state government employees has found that those who believed that their work was important had lower absenteeism than did those who did not feel this way. Additionally, it is important to remember that although high job satisfaction will not necessarily result in low absenteeism, low job satisfaction is more likely to bring about absenteeism.134

Other Effects and Ways to Enhance Satisfaction

In addition to those noted above, there are a number of other effects brought about by high job satisfaction. Research reports that highly satisfied employees tend to have better Co

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physical health, learn new job-related tasks more quickly, have fewer on-the-job accidents, and file fewer grievances. Also on the positive side, it has been found that there is a strong negative relationship between job satisfaction and perceived stress.135 In other words, by building satisfaction, stress may be reduced.

Overall, there is no question that employee satisfaction in jobs is in and of itself desir- able. It cannot only reduce stress, but as the preceding discussion points out, may also help improve performance, turnover, and absenteeism. Based on the current body of knowl- edge, the following evidence-based guidelines may help enhance job satisfaction.136

1. Make jobs more fun. World-class companies such as Southwest Airlines have a fun culture for their employees. Southwest management makes it clear that irreverence is okay; it’s okay to be yourself; and take the competition seriously, but not yourself.137

Having a fun culture may not make jobs themselves more satisfying, but it does break up boredom and lessen the chances of dissatisfaction.

2. Have fair pay, benefits, and promotion opportunities. These are obvious ways that organizations typically try to keep their employees satisfied. Recent national surveys indicate that employees rank benefits and pay as very important to their job satisfac- tion.138 As Chapter 4 pointed out, an important way to make benefits more effective would be to provide a flexible, so-called cafeteria approach. This allows employees to choose their own distribution of benefits within the budgeted amount available. This way there would be no discrepancies between what they want, because it’s their choice.

3. Match people with jobs that fit their interests and skills. Getting the right fit is one of the most important, but overlooked, ways to have satisfied employees. This, of course, assumes that the organization knows what those interests and skills are. Effec- tive human resource management firms such as Disney, Southwest Airlines, Google, and Microsoft put considerable effort into finding out interests and skills of potential new hires, as well as existing employees, in order to make the match or fit with the right job.

4. Design jobs to make them exciting and satisfying. Instead of finding people to fit the job as in point 3, this approach suggests designing jobs to fit the people. Most people do not find boring, repetitive work very satisfying. For example, the Canadian aero- space firm Nordavionics was losing too many of their talented engineers. They found that they could increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover by being more sensitive to and providing their engineers with more challenging work and professional growth. Unfortunately, too many jobs today are boring and should be changed or eliminated as much as possible. Chapter 6 is concerned with designing jobs to help motivate and satisfy today’s employees. Examples include providing more responsi- bility and building in more variety, significance, identity, autonomy, and feedback.

In summary, most organizational behavior scholars as well as practicing managers would argue that job satisfaction is important to an organization. Some critics have argued, however, that this is pure conjecture because there is so much we do not know about the positive effects of satisfaction. On the other hand, when job satisfaction is low, there seem to be negative effects on the organization that have been well documented. So if only from the standpoint of viewing job satisfaction as a minimum requirement or point of departure, it is of value to the employees’ well-being and the organization’s overall health and effec- tiveness and is deserving of study and application in the field of organizational behavior.Co

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Organizational Commitment

Although job satisfaction has received the most attention of all work-related attitudes, organizational commitment has become increasingly recognized in the organizational behavior literature. Whereas satisfaction is mainly concerned with the employee’s attitude toward the job and commitment is at the level of the organization, a strong relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment has been found over the years.139

Yet, there are always many employees who are satisfied with their jobs, but dislike, say, the highly bureaucratic organization they work for, or the software engineer may be dissatis- fied with her current job, but be very committed to the overall visionary high-tech firm.

On balance, research studies and the field of organizational behavior in general treat satisfaction and commitment as different attitudes. In light of the new environment that includes downsizing, telecommuting, mergers and acquisitions, globalization, and diver- sity, organizational commitment has resurfaced as a very important topic of study and con- cern. Although some expert observers feel that organizational commitment is a dead issue because of the new environment and should be replaced by career commitment,140 others such as the following see organizational commitment as the major challenge in modern times:

Today’s workplace is enveloped by the fear of downsizing, loss of job security, over- whelming change in technology and the stress of having to do more with less … managers [need to] establish the type of caring, spirited workplace that will ignite employee commitment.141

After first defining commitment and its dimensions, what research has found to date about its outcomes is then summarized.

The Meaning of Organizational Commitment

As with other topics in organizational behavior, a wide variety of definitions and mea- sures of organizational commitment exist.142 As an attitude, organizational commitment is most often defined as (1) a strong desire to remain a member of a particular organization; (2) a willingness to exert high levels of effort on behalf of the organization; and (3) a defi- nite belief in, and acceptance of, the values and goals of the organization.143 In other words, this is an attitude reflecting employees’ loyalty to their organization and is an ongo- ing process through which organizational participants express their concern for the organi- zation and its continued success and well-being. Using this definition, it is commonly measured by the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire shown in Figure 5.2.

The organizational commitment attitude is determined by a number of personal (age, tenure in the organization, career adaptability, and dispositions such as positive or negative affectivity, or internal or external control attributions) and organizational (the job design, values, support, procedural fairness, and the leadership style of one’s supervisor) vari- ables.144 Even nonorganizational factors, such as the availability of alternatives after mak- ing the initial choice to join an organization, will affect subsequent commitment.145

Also, because of the new environment where many organizations are not demonstrat- ing evidence of commitment to their employees, recent research has found that an employee’s career commitment is a moderator between the perceptions of company poli- cies and practices and organizational commitment.146 For example, even though employ- ees perceive supervisory support, they would also need to have a commitment to their Co

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careers, say, in engineering or marketing, in order to have high organizational commit- ment.

Because of this multidimensional nature of organizational commitment, there is grow- ing support for the three-component model proposed by Meyer and Allen.147 The three dimensions are as follows:

1. Affective commitment involves the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization.

2. Continuance commitment involves commitment based on the costs that the employee associates with leaving the organization. This may be because of the loss of senority for promotion or benefits.

3. Normative commitment involves employees’ feelings of obligation to stay with the organization because they should; it is the right thing to do.

There is considerable research support for this three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment.148 It also generally holds up across cultures.149

FIGURE 5.2. Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)

Source: R. T. Mowday, R. M. Steers, and L. W. Porter, “The Measure of Organizational Commitment,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 14, 1979, p. 288. Used with permission.

Listed below are a series of statements that represent possible feelings that individuals might have about the company or organization for which they work. With respect to your own feelings about the particular organization for which you are now working, please indicate the degree of your agreement or disagreement with each statement by checking one of the seven alternatives below each statement.*

1. I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what is normally expected in order to help this organization be successful.

2. I talk up this organization to my friends as a great organization to work for. 3. I feel very little loyalty to this organization. (R) 4. I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this

organization. 5. I find that my values and the organization’s values are very similar. 6. I am proud to tell others that I am a part of this organization. 7. I could just as well be working for a different organization as long as the type of work

was similar. (R) 8. This organization really inspires the very best in me in the way of job performance. 9. It would take very little change in my present circumstances to cause me to leave this

organization. (R) 10. I am extremely glad that I chose this organization to work for over others I was

considering at the time I joined. 11. There’s not too much to be gained by sticking with this organization indefinitely. (R) 12. Often, I find it difficult to agree with this organization’s policies on important matters

relating to its employees. (R) 13. I really care about the fate of this organization. 14. For me this is the best of all possible organizations for which to work. 15. Deciding to work for this organization was a definite mistake on my part. (R)

*Responses to each item are measured on a 7-point scale with scale point anchors labeled (1) strongly disagree; (2) moderately disagree; (3) slightly disagree; (4) neither disagree nor agree; (5) slightly agree; (6) moderately agree; (7) strongly agree. An “R” denotes a negatively phrased and reverse-scored item.

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The Outcomes of Organizational Commitment

As is the case with job satisfaction, there are mixed outcomes of organizational com- mitment. Both early150 and more recent research studies151 do show support of a positive relationship between organizational commitment and desirable outcomes such as high per- formance, low turnover, and low absenteeism. There is also evidence that employee com- mitment relates to other desirable outcomes, such as the perception of a warm, supportive organizational climate152 and being a good team member willing to help.153 Yet, as with satisfaction, there are some studies that do not show strong relationships between commit- ment and outcome variables154 and others where there are moderating effects between organizational commitment and performance. For example, one study found a stronger relationship between organizational commitment and performance for those with low financial needs than for those with high ones,155 and another study found that the more ten- ure the employees had on the job and with the employing organization, the less impact their commitment had on performance.156 Also, a study found that commitment to supervisors was more strongly related to performance than was commitment to organizations.157 These and a number of other studies indicate the complexity of an attitude such as commit- ment.158 On balance, however, most researchers would agree that the organizational com- mitment attitude as defined here may be a better predictor of desirable outcome variables than is job satisfaction159 and thus deserves management’s attention.

Guidelines to Enhance Organizational Commitment

As the opening discussion of commitment indicated, management faces a paradoxical situation: “On the one hand today’s focus on teamwork, empowerment, and flatter organi- zations puts a premium on just the sort of self-motivation that one expects to get from com- mitted employees; on the other hand, environmental forces are acting to diminish the foundations of employee commitment.”160 Dessler suggests the following specific guide- lines to implement a management system that should help solve the current dilemma and enhance employees’ organizational commitment:

1. Commit to people-first values. Put it in writing, hire the right-kind managers, and walk the talk.

2. Clarify and communicate your mission. Clarify the mission and ideology; make it charismatic; use value-based hiring practices; stress values-based orientation and training; build the tradition.

3. Guarantee organizational justice. Have a comprehensive grievance procedure; pro- vide for extensive two-way communications.

4. Create a sense of community. Build value-based homogeneity; share and share alike; emphasize barnraising, cross-utilization, and teamwork; get together.

5. Support employee development. Commit to actualizing; provide first-year job chal- lenge; enrich and empower; promote from within; provide developmental activities; provide employee security without guarantees.161

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)

An appropriate concluding section for this chapter covering personality, perception, and attitudes are the prosocial/organizational citizenship behaviors, simply known as OCBs. This now very popular construct in organizational behavior was first introduced Co

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over 30 years ago with a cognitively based theoretical foundation. Organ defines OCB as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the for- mal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization.”162

The personality foundation for these OCBs reflects the employee’s predispositional traits to be cooperative, helpful, caring, and conscientious. The attitudinal foundation indi- cates that employees engage in OCBs in order to reciprocate the actions of their organiza- tions. Motivational dimensions,163 job satisfaction,164 and organizational commitment165

clearly relate to OCBs. More important to OCBs, however, is that employees must perceive that they are being treated fairly, that the procedures and outcomes are fair. A number of studies have found a strong relationship between justice and OCBs.166 It seems that pro- cedural justice affects employees by influencing their perceived organizational support, which in turn prompts them to reciprocate with OCBs, going beyond the formal job requirements.167

Besides being extra-role or going beyond “the call of duty,” other major dimensions are that OCBs are discretionary or voluntary in nature and that they are not necessarily rec- ognized by the formal reward system of the organization.168 OCBs can take many forms, but the major ones could be summarized as: (1) altruism (e.g., helping out when a coworker is not feeling well), (2) conscientiousness (e.g., staying late to finish a project), (3) civic virtue (e.g., volunteering for a community program to represent the firm), (4) sportsman- ship (e.g., sharing failure of a team project that would have been successful by following the member’s advice), and (5) courtesy (e.g., being understanding and empathetic even when provoked).169 Research also examines antecedents such as job attitudes that account for loyalty OCBs, personality that accounts for service delivery OCBs, effects of national- ity on the role of OCBs,170 the amount of control people have over their job relates to OCBs,171 customer knowledge and personality that jointly predict participation in OCBs,172 and relationship quality and relationship context as antecedents of person- and task-focused interpersonal citizenship behaviors.173

Obviously, all these different types of OCBs are valuable to organizations and, although they frequently go undetected by the reward system, there is evidence that indi- viduals who exhibit OCBs do perform better and receive higher performance evalua- tions.174 Also, OCBs do relate to group and organization performance and effectiveness.175 However, as with job satisfaction and organizational commitment, there is still some criticism of the conceptualization and research on OCBs,176 and more research is certainly warranted. For example, one study found that OCBs do influence organiza- tional outcomes rather than the other way around177 and another study has begun to ana- lyze the influence of gender on the performance of OCBs.178 Also, although the research has focused on the positive impact of OCBs, a recent study found that at least too much of the individual initiative portion of OCB is related to higher levels of employee role over- load, job stress, and work-family conflict.179 Yet, as a summary statement, today’s manag- ers would be very wise in trying to enhance not only job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but also prosocial, organizational citizenship behaviors of their employees.

SUMMARY

Personality, perception, and attitudes represent important micro, cognitively oriented vari- ables in the study of organizational behavior. Personality represents the “whole person” concept. It includes perception, learning, motivation, and more. According to this defini-Co

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tion, people’s external appearance and traits, their inner awareness of self, and the person- situation interaction make up their personalities. Although the nature versus nurture debate continues, the findings of twin studies point out the importance that heredity may play in personality, and recent breakthroughs in neuropsychology indicate the importance of the brain in personality have led most psychologists to recognize nature and nurture. However, the nurture side still dominates. Self-esteem, the person-situation interaction, and the socialization process of personality development are all very relevant to the understanding and application of organizational behavior.

Besides the recent advances in the genetic and brain input into personality, the study of relatively fixed dispositions have recognized importance in the form of the “Big Five” personality traits. Conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience have been found to significantly relate to job performance, espe- cially conscientiousness. In addition, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) remains a popular tool for personal and career development. Whereas the Big Five is based on research, the MBTI is based on the historically important Carl Jung theory of personality types and mental processes. Both the Big Five and MBTI if carefully interpreted and used can make a contribution to the understanding and application of organizational behavior.

Whereas personality is an important cognitive construct to help explain organizational behavior, perception is an important cognitive process. Through this complex perceptual process or filter, persons make interpretations of the stimulus or situation facing them. The social context that this process takes place is particularly important to the study of organi- zational behavior. Particularly relevant problems in this social perception are stereotyping (the tendency to perceive another person as belonging to a single class or category) and the halo effect (the tendency to perceive a person on the basis of one trait).

The remainder of the chapter is concerned with cognitively based attitudes. Personal- ity traits, perceptions, and dispositions such as positive affectivity (PA) and negative affec- tivity (NA), are important antecedents to attitudes about one’s job. However, traditionally the most important attitude studied in organizational behavior and given concern in the real world is job satisfaction. This attitude is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience. A number of factors influence job satisfaction. Some of the major ones are the work itself, pay, promotions, supervision, the work group, and working conditions. There are a number of outcomes of job satisfac- tion. For example, although the relationship with performance was thought to be relatively weak, more recent research is showing a much stronger relationship. Low job satisfaction tends to lead to both turnover and absenteeism, whereas high job satisfaction often results in fewer on-the-job accidents and work grievances, less time needed to learn new job- related tasks, and less stress. There are also specific guidelines to enhance employee satis- faction such as making jobs fun, ensuring fairness, getting the right fit, and designing jobs to make them more exciting and satisfying.

Closely related to job satisfaction is the organizational commitment attitude. It tradi- tionally refers to the employees’ loyalty to the organization and is determined by a number of personal, organizational, and nonorganizational variables. Now commitment is gener- ally conceived as having three components: affective (emotional attachment), continuance (costs of leaving), and normative (obligation to stay). Like job satisfaction, the organiza- tional commitment attitude is very complex and has mixed results, but in general, it is thought to have a somewhat stronger relationship with organizational outcomes such as performance, absenteeism, and turnover. Like satisfaction, organizational commitment can be enhanced.Co

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The concluding section draws from personality, perception, and attitudes. The extrarole, prosocial/organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) involve predispositional traits to be cooperative and conscientious and reflect through attitudes fair treatment from the organization. OCBs can take a number of forms such as altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, sportsmanship, and courtesy. Although there is still some criticism of the con- ceptualization and research on OCBs, there is growing evidence that OCBs positively relate to individual, group, and organizational performance.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. Critically analyze the statement that “the various psychological processes can be thought of as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and personality as the completed puzzle pic- ture.”

2. What is the comprehensive definition of personality? Give brief examples of each of the major elements.

3. What side would you prefer to argue in the nature versus nurture debate? What would be the major points each side would make? How would you resolve the controversy?

4. What are the “Big Five” personality traits? Which one seems to have the biggest impact on performance? How would knowledge of the Big Five help you in your job as a manager?

5. What are the four major dimensions of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) that yield the 16 types? How can the MBTI be used effectively?

6. In understanding the process of perception, do you agree with the observation that people are human information processors? Why?

7. How does sensation differ from perception? 8. What does stereotyping mean? Why is it considered to be a perceptual problem? 9. What is meant by the halo effect? Summarize the current thinking on this halo effect. 10. What is negative affectivity (NA)? What would be an example of an employee with

high NA? What is PA? Provide an example. 11. What is meant by the term job satisfaction? What are some of the major factors that

influence job satisfaction? 12. What are some of the important outcomes of job satisfaction? 13. What is organizational commitment? What three components have emerged to help

better explain the complexities of commitment? Why may an understanding of orga- nizational commitment be especially important in the years ahead?

14. What are organization citizenship behaviors (OCBs)? How do they come about and what are some examples?

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Good people—valuable employees—quit their jobs every day. Usually, they leave for better positions elsewhere. Take Ken, an experienced underwriter in a northeastern insurance company, who scribbled the following remarks on his exit interview questionnaire:

This job isn’t right for me. I like to have more input on decisions that affect me—more of a chance to show what I can do. I don’t get enough feedback to tell if I’m doing a good job or not, and the company keeps people in the dark about where it’s headed. Basically, I feel like an inter- changeable part most of the time.

In answer to the question about whether the company could have done anything to keep him, Ken replied simply, “Probably not.”

Why do so many promising employees leave their jobs? And why do so many others stay on but perform at minimal levels for lack of better alternatives? One of the main reasons—Ken’s reason—can be all but invisible, because it’s so common in so many organizations: a system-wide failure to keep good people.

Corporations should be concerned about employees like Ken. By investing in human capi- tal, they may actually help reduce turnover, pro- tect training investments, increase productivity,

improve quality, and reap the benefits of innova- tive thinking and teamwork.

Human resource professionals and managers can contribute to corporate success by encourag- ing employees’ empowerment, security, identity, “connectedness,” and competence. How? By rec- ognizing the essential components of keeping their best people and by understanding what enhances and diminishes those components.

Ken doubts that his company will ever change, but other organizations are taking posi- tive steps to focus on and enhance employee retention. As a result, they’re reducing turnover, improving quality, increasing productivity, and protecting their training investments.

1. Do you think that Ken’s self-esteem had anything to do with his leaving the firm?

2. What do you think were Ken’s satisfaction with and commitment to the job and firm he is leaving? How does this relate to the research on the determinants and outcomes of satisfaction and commitment?

3. What lesson can this company learn from the case of Ken? What can and should it now do?

Organizational Behavior Case: Ken Leaves the Company

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