Chapter 4
Personality and Values
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Learning Objectives
Define personality, describe how it is measured, and explain the factors that
determine an individual’s personality.
Describe the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality framework and assess its
strengths and weaknesses.
Identify the key traits in the Big Five personality model.
Demonstrate how the Big Five traits predict behavior at work.
Identify other personality traits relevant to OB.
Define values, demonstrate their importance, and contrast terminal and
instrumental values.
Compare generational differences in values, and identify the dominant values in
today’s workforce.
Identify Hofstede’s five value dimensions of national culture.
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Personality
What is Personality?
The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that
determine his unique adjustments to his environment. “Gordon Allport”
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others, the
measurable traits a person exhibits
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Personality
Measuring Personality
Personality Tests
Helpful in hiring decisions
Self Report Surveys
Most common method
Observer Rating Surveys
Provide an independent assessment of personality –
often better predictors
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Personality
Personality Determinants
Heredity
Factors determined at conception: physical stature, facial
attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and
reflexes, energy level, and bio-rhythms
“Heredity Approach” argues that
Twin studies: raised apart but
genes are the source of
very similar personalities
personality
Parents don’t add much
personality development
Personality Traits
to
There is some personality
change over long time periods
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior
The more consistent the characteristic and the more frequently it
occurs in diverse situations, the more important the trait
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Personality
The Myers – Briggs Indicator (MBTI)
A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16 personality
types using 100 questions
Most widely-used instrument in the world
Extroverted (E) vs. Introverted (I)
Sensing (S) vs. Intuitive (N)
Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)
Each of the sixteen possible combinations has a name
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Personality
The Big Five Personality Model
A personality assessment model that taps five basic dimensions
+ + + Extraversion
Introversion - - Extraversion
The quality of being comfortable with relationships (Sociable, gregarious, and assertive)
Higher performance – Enhanced leadership – Higher job & life satisfaction
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Personality
The Big Five Personality Model
+ + + High
Low - - Agreeableness
The ability to get along with others (Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting)
Higher performance – Lower levels of deviant behavior
+ + + High
Low - - Conscientiousness
The number of goals on which a person focuses (Responsible, dependable, persistent, and
organized)
Higher performance – Enhanced leadership – Greater longevity
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Personality
The Big Five Personality Model
+ + + More
Less- - Emotional Stability
Less moodiness and insecurity (Calm, self-confident, secure under stress (positive), versus
nervous, depressed, and insecure under stress (negative)
High job & life satisfaction – Lower stress level
+ + + More
Less - - Openness
The capacity to entertain new ideas and to change as a result of new information (Curious,
imaginative, artistic, and sensitive)
Training performance – Enhanced leadership – More adaptable to change
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Personality
Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
Core Self Evaluation
The degree to which people like or dislike
themselves
higher job performance
Machiavellianism
A pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who
believes that ends justify the means
win more often
Narcissism
An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who
needs excessive admiration
Less effective in their
jobs
Self Monitoring
The ability to adjust behavior to meet external,
situational factors.
more likely to become
leaders.
Risk Taking
The willingness to take chances.
make faster decisions
with less information
Types A Personality
Aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant
struggle to achieve more in less time
High performance
Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes
action, and perseveres to completion
Creates positive change
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in the environment
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Values
What is Values?
Basic convictions on how to conduct yourself or how to live your life that is personally or
socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence
Attributes of Values
Content Attribute
That the mode of conduct or end-state is importance
Intensity Attribute
Person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform a task
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Values
What is Value System?
A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s value in terms of their intensity
Tends to be relatively constant and consistent
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Values
What is the Importance of Values?
Provide understanding of the attitudes, motivation, and behaviors
Influence our perception of the world around us
Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”
Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are preferred over others
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Values
Terminal Versus Instrumental Values “Rokeach Value Survey”
Terminal Values
Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person would like to
achieve during his or her lifetime
Instrumental Values
Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values
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Values
Generational Values
Cohort
Entered Workforce
Approximate
Current Age
Dominant Work Values
Veterans
1950-1964
65+
Hard working, conservative, conforming; loyalty
to the organization
Boomers
1965-1985
40-60s
Success, achievement, ambition, dislike of
authority; loyalty to career
Xers
1985-2000
20-40s
Work/life balance, team-oriented, dislike of
rules; loyalty to relationships
Nexters
2000-Present
Under 30
Confident, financial success, self-reliant but
team-oriented; loyalty to both self and
relationships
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Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace
Personality - Job Fit
Theory
A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between
personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and
turnover
John Holland’s Personality-Job Fit Theory
Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI)
Realistic
Social
Investigative
Enterprising
Artistic
Conventional
1.
2.
3.
There appear to be intrinsic differences in personality between people.
There are different types of jobs.
People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more satisfied
and have lower turnover.
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Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace
Person
Organization Fit
–
The extent that employee’s personality must fit with the organizational
culture.
People are attracted to organizations that match their values.
Those who match are most likely to be selected.
Mismatches will result in turnover.
Can use the Big Five personality types to match to the organizational culture.
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Global Implications
Personality
Do frameworks like Big Five transfer across cultures?
Yes, but the frequency of type in the
culture may vary
Values
Better
in
individualistic
collectivist cultures
than
Values differ across cultures
Hofstede’s Framework for assessing culture – five value dimensions: Power
distance - Individualism vs. Collectivism - Masculinity vs. Femininity Uncertainty Avoidance - Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation
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Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Power Distance
The extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and
organizations is distributed unequally
Low Distance
High Distance
Relatively equal power between those with
status / wealth and those without status /
wealth
Extremely unequal power distribution
between those with status / wealth and
those without status / wealth
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Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Individualism
Collectivism
The degree to which people prefer to act as
individuals rather than as members of
groups
A tight social framework in which people
expect others in groups of which they are a
part to look after them and protect them
Masculinity
Femininity
The extent to which the society values work
roles of achievement, power, and control,
and where assertiveness and materialism
are also valued
The extent to which there is little
differentiation between roles for men and
women
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Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Uncertainty
Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and
ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them
High Uncertainty Avoidance
Low Uncertainty Avoidance
Society does not like ambiguous situations
and tries to avoid them
Society does not mind ambiguous
situations and embraces them
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Global Implications
Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures
Long-term Orientation
A national culture attribute that
emphasizes the future, thrift, and
persistence
Short-term Orientation
A national culture attribute that emphasizes
the present and the here-and-now
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Global Implications
GLOBE Framework for Assessing Cultures
Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program
(Nine dimensions of national culture)
Humane Orientation
Performance Orientation
How much society rewards people for being
altruistic, generous, and kind
How much society encourages and rewards
performance improvement and excellence
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