Personality and Organizational Behaviour
Organizational behaviour involves individual behaviour and group dynamics in
organizations. According to Nelson and Quick (2003) organizational behaviour is
primarily concerned with the psychological, interpersonal, and behavioural dynamics in
organizations necessary for performance efftiveness. They opine that other variables that
affect human behaviour at work that involves organizational behaviour include; jobs, the
design of work, communication, performance appraisal, organizational design, and
organizational structure. By definition, organizational behaviour is both research and
application oriented. According to Kreitner and Kinicki (2004) there are three basic levels
of analysis in organizational behaviour, which are; individual, group and organizational
levels. While the individuals and groups bring their skills, knowledge, values, motives
and attitudes into the organization, thereby affecting the organization, the organization on
the other hand, modifies or restructures the individuals and groups through its own
system of operations. As an interdisciplinary field primarily dedicated to better
understanding and managing people at work, it would appear that the variables that can
have direct influence on human behaviour, organizational behaviour and corporate
effectiveness include, but not limited to personality, organizational design and job design.
To achieve corporate effectiveness the organization must be able to motivate its members.
Motivation as a management function is also connected with the issue of organizational
leadership which is a critical determinant of organizational success. Organizational
behaviour implies that effective leadership must be based on understanding rather than on
techniques alone, on mature relationships of mutual trust rather than on manipulation. It
should be based on an indept communication instead of on superficial verbal transactions
that may not be able to transport intended meanings in the context (Drucker, 2009;
DuBrin, 2012; Hardre, 2013; Nazeri, 2011).
Personality is the totality of the qualities, abilities, beliefs and morals of an individual
which clearly brings out the uniqueness of his or her being. According to Feldman (2007)
personality is the pattern of enduring characteristics that differentiates a person-those
patterns of behaviours that make each individual unique. It is also personality that leads a
person to act consistently and predictably in different situations and over extended
periods of time. Personality is a critical measure in organizational behaviour because it is
the individual’s characteristics and behaviours, organized in such a way as to reflect the
unique adjustment which the person makes to his or her environment. The way and
manner an individual performs his or her duty (behaviour) is influenced by his or her
personality characterized by agility, knowledge, and other competencies. The
environmental factors that may influence the performance (behaviour) of the individual in
the work situation may include, work conditions, availability of working materials, the
task itself, among others. The integration between the person and the environment will
determine actual performance (behaviour). Behaviour refers to actions or movements
aimed at achieving a specific objective. It is everything done that can be observed and can
also have impact on organizational performance. This can be located within the concept
and context of positive organizational behavior (Hergenhahn and Olson, 1999; Luthans,
2002).
Organizational Design and Organizational Behaviour
Even though the individuals and groups bring their skills and abilities to the
organization and to influence it, organizational structure plays a unique role. There are
two ways of looking at organizational design. First and foremost, as a part of the field of
organizational behaviour in which case it is concerned with the establishment of the basic
principles and concepts that underlie the evaluation of organizational structure. Second,
as a top management function involving the creation of an appropriate architecture
through which the activities of an organization are accomplished. The possible outcomes
of such a top management action include organizational chart, job description or design,
policies and procedures, necessary for corporate performance. On the other hand,
organizational structure refers to an established pattern of work roles embracing authority
and responsibility relationships and the administrative mechanisms used in controlling
and integrating work activity. This is a type of unifying mechanism that attempts to bring
together people and work in a harmonious manner. In this case, the concern of top
management engaged in organizational design is to create an effective structure for the
membership of the organization that would guarantee the realization of the goals of the
organization (Fritz, 1996; Shih et al., 2016; Torraco and Swanson, 2015).
Job Design and Organizational Behaviour
Job design can be defined as the systematic specification of the tasks inherent in a job,
the techniques used in performing the job and the relationship of the job to other jobs.
Essentially, job design is concerned with identifying the tasks and determining the
techniques suitable for its accomplishment. In addition, management must consider the
interdependencies of the job and its processes to the worker to ensure the best fit between
the worker and the job. Job design is important in organizational behaviour and corporate
effectiveness because it is believed that ultimate job performance is influenced by the tool
and methods adopted in accomplishing the job. Also, the nature of the job or task
determines the methods, the tools, and the techniques to be adopted. This implies that
there should be a balance between the demands of both the job, the tools and the
employee's physical and mental efforts. Basic methods in job design include job
enlargement and job enrichment. Job enlargement simply involves increasing the job
range or horizontally loading the job. Job enlargement has the advantage of increasing the
skill variety of a worker. Academic research has shown that it increases worker
performance (behaviour). However, job enlargement does not give the worker control
over his work; also some workers do not even like enlarged jobs. On the other extreme is
job enrichment. Job enrichment involves increasing the depth of the job or vertically
loading the job through giving the worker control over what he or she is doing. It is
broader in scope than job enlargement because it requires increasing both the range and
the depth of a job. Some of the variables associated with job enrichment include,
accountability, achievement and control. Accountability implies that the worker should be
responsible for his or her performance, and achievement means that the job should be
challenging enough to enable the worker achieve something significant. Control demands
that the worker should be able to determine and control the pace of his or her
performance in attempts to achieve organizational goals. Human resource management is
an essential building block in organizational behaviour and corporate effectiveness
because even though the board of directors (BODs) should ensure that a proper
management structure, systems and people are in place, the entire membership of the
organization must be well motivated for optimal performance. It can be emphasized that
sound human resource management helps to promote and maintain corporate interest,
reputation and it is the acts and omissions of the people charged with relevant
responsibilities that will determine whether corporate objectives are to be achieved.
Obviously, the interaction of human behaviour with corporate practices and the
environment provides the basis for the ultimate corporate effectiveness (Fritz et al., 1998;
Hellriegel et al., 2001; Lazaar, 2014; Schermerharm et al., 2011).
Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Behaviour
Emotional intelligence often described as the revolutionary new science of success
and human relationships, promotes emotional health, it is about being happy, self-
confident, self-aware and resilient. It is the ability to indentify emotions and use them
constructively in everyday life and in organizations. This necessitates learning emotional
regulations, or the ability to control emotions, monitoring them and adjusting them to
shape personality and behaviour. Emotional intelligence has huge positive influence on
organizational behaviour and organizations at large through the membership and
leadership (Mandell and Pherwani, 2003). Emotional intelligence as a unique
psychological construct is associated with positive co-operative behaviour. For example,
according to Nelson and Quick (2003) in contrast to task performance, co-operative
behaviour is a form of contextual performance at work. Contextual performance
contributes directly to organizational success by maintaining or improving the
organizational, social, or psychological environment that supports task performance. In
other words, contextual performance improves the social-psychological quality of the
work environment and also has specific relationships with personality characteristics and
cognitive ability. They found in a study that cognitive ability was strongly related to task
performance, but not contextual performance. In contrast, the personality characteristics
of conscientiousness, extroversion, and agreeableness were strongly related to co-
operative behaviour. Therefore, personality factors do have influence on co-operative
behaviour but it depends on the organizational emotional intelligence and the quality of
the organizational, social and psychological environment at work (Lepine and Dyne,
2001). In emphasizing the relationship between organizational behaviour and emotional
intelligence, Cherniss and Caplan (2001) suggest that individual factors, group factors,
interpersonal and organizational factors are critical ingredients of organizational
behaviour. They suggest that in organizational selection processes, chief executive
officers. (CEO), intervention strategies are among the issues that shape organizational
behaviour and performance. The theory of emotional intelligence suggests that excellent
performance management systems combined with effective training and development will
have impact only when the organizational leadership practices are aligned with them.
Leadership in this context is tied to excellent organizational management systems which
are needed for corporate effectiveness. Even though organizational leaders may believe
that individual and organizational capacity for continuous learning is an essential
competitive advantage, matters in the external environment may often take their attention
away from this concern and leading to negative individual and group performance.
Therefore, capturing the attention of leaders for the purpose of having organizational
people engaged in quality work is necessary and will ultimately contribute to corporate
effectiveness. Leadership is a major emotional intelligence competence that has huge
influence on organizational membership and corporate performance. It also to a great
extent drives corporate behaviour and effectiveness (Lam and Kirby, 2002; Warner, 1994;
Zhang et al., 2017). According to Goleman (2006) organizational life is a kind of vanity
fair, in which those who want to get ahead can do so by playing to the vanity of their
superiors. Therefore, organizations must find ways to force leaders to listen to employees
and take others' views into consideration in decision-making. Leaders who do not
appreciate the views of employees will likely stay isolated behind their desks and a wall
of colorless sycophants who will readily be supportive irrespective of whatever is said or
done. The emotional intelligence, personality and competences ofInternational Journal of
Economics and Financial Research
organizational leaders influence task demands, people, building blocks and organizational
culture to enhance corporate effectiveness (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005; Avino, 2013;
Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1998; Caruso et al., 2002; Daus and Ashkanasy, 2005; MiGOI et al.,
2017; Munir and Azam, 2017; Sparr et al., 2017).
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