MOI UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES
2010/2011 ACADEMIC YEAR
BSC IN COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
UNIT: CMM 212 ORGANIZATION BEHAVIORS.
AD NO: CPR 2321/11
Quest two.
Discuss the following key factors in individual behavior
a)Intellectual abilities
b) Gender
c) Experience
d)Age.
e) Physical abilities
Introduction.
The people within an organization are one of the primary influences on the overall
organizational behaviour within a company. The interactions between individual
employees are, in fact, one of the primary areas of study within the field of
organizational behaviour. Various personal characteristics that may influence
organizational behaviour include the education level of employees, Intellectual abilities,
Gender, Age, experience, Age, Physical abilities.
Ability refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. An
individual’s overall abilities are essentially made up of the following factors:
a) Intellectual ability.
This is the ability measured by performance on an intelligence test. It is also sometimes
used in the context of discussing the performance of someone in an academic or real
world setting.
Intellectual Abilities are those that are needed to perform mental activities usually
involving thinking and reasoning. Mental activities can be measured by intelligent
quotient (IQ) tests that are designed to ascertain one’s general mental abilities. Some
familiar examples of such tests are Management programs admission Usually these
tests try to measure and evaluate one’s mental abilities on various academic areas
pertaining to the success in the relevant courses, such as mathematics, English, General
knowledge etc.
It is believed that there are a few different dimensions of mental abilities. Some of the
most frequently cited dimensions of intellectual capacities are:
a) Number Aptitude (Mathematics), do speed and accurate arithmetic.
b) Verbal Comprehension (English).Ability to understand what is read or head and the
relationship of words.
c) Perceptual Speed.-Ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem, and solve it.
e) Deductive Reasoning- Ability to use a logical argument and asses the implication of an
argument.
f) Spatial Visualization -Ability to imagine how an object would look if it’s positioned in
place.
g) Memory-Ability to retain and recall past experiences.
Generally speaking, the more information processing is required in a job, the more
general intelligence and verbal abilities will be necessary to perform the job successful.
For many jobs in which employee behavior is highly routine and there are little or no
opportunities to exercise discretion, a high IQ may be unrelated to performance. On the
other hand, a careful review of the evidence demonstrates that tests that assess verbal,
numerical, spatial, and perceptual ability are valid predictors of job proficiency at all
levels of jobs. Therefore, tests measure specific dimensions of intelligence have been
found to be strong predictors of future job performance.
Relevance of Intellectual Ability to OB.
According to analysis of 2009 by cnchikwe, he describes the intellectual ability as
directly influences behavior I the organization.
Employee performance is enhanced when an employee and position are well matched
what we call a high ability–job fit. If we focus only on the employee’s abilities or the
ability requirements of the job, we ignore the fact that employee performance depends
on the interaction of the two. If employees lack the required abilities, they are likely to
fail. If you’re hired as a word processor and you can’t meet the jobs basic keyboard
typing requirements, your performance is going to be poor in spite of your positive
attitude or your high level of motivation.
When an employee has abilities that far exceed the requirements of the job, our
predictions would be very different. The employee’s performance may be adequate, but
it may be accompanied by organizational inefficiencies and possible declines in
employee satisfaction because the employee is frustrated by the limitations of the job.
Additionally, given that pay tends to reflect the highest skill level that employees
possess, if an employee’s abilities far exceed those necessary to do the job,
management will be paying more than it needs to pay. In a nutshell, an employee’s job
specifications should be in line with his intellectual abilities. That way, he’ll be able to
execute his duties excellently and effortlessly, as well as obtaining maximum job
satisfaction.
A person with high intelligent abilities is able to do the following:
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Sharp memory .The thy always have a good memory to remember things and
that translates to accuracy limiting chances of unnecessary mistakes.
Communication skills. Person with high intellectual abilities is able to
communicate comfortably to all kinds of people
Adaptive behaviour or adaptive functioning. Intellectual person has a high
adaptive behaviour which makes him all weather people, in time of crisis or
normal times.
b)Gender
Gender is the question if a woman can do what a man can do in an organization and job
distributions. Most researchers have argued that there is a few, if any important
difference between a man and a woman that will affect their job performance.
For instance, there is no difference between male, female problem solving ability
analytical skills, leadership skills.
Factors that make woman behave different from men.
Responsibilities.
Women have naturally a lot of responsibilities that they are engaged in work and family
matters. Balancing work family sometimes becomes tedious to a mother. This
responsibility might affect the behaviour of a mother if for example she has a preschooling age child. This might affect the work schedule. Working mothers are more
likely to prefer part-time work, flexibility work schedules and communicated in advance
to accommodate their family responsibilities.
Absence and turn over
In terms of absence from work, a woman records the greater higher rate of absence
from work. Cultural has placed home and family responsibility on a woman Foe
example, when a child is sick; it’s the mother who will take care of the situation. Its from
tradition that a woman who has taken time off from work
Psychological study shows that women are more willing to confirm to authority and that
men are more aggressive and more likely to succeed that women but the difference are
minor.
Various Research findings on gender.
Prior research provides a basis to expect gender differences in the salience
of instrumentality in decision-making processes about a new system.
Research on gender differences has suggested that for men, work is typically the most
salient role, while the family role is perceived to be less important (e.g., Barnett
& Marshall, 1991).
Similarly, O’Neil (1982) suggested that men are greatly
Preoccupied with work, accomplishments, and eminence. Men are motivated by
achievement needs.
Woman sees relationships as more important in their lives than men do (Erikson, 1968;
Hodgson.
Women appear to be more strongly motivated by affiliation needs (Hoffman, 1972;
Kohlberg & Kramer, 1969) and tend to express a higher degree of interest in personoriented professions (Weller, Shlomi, & Zimont, 1976).
Gill et al. (1987) suggest that women, more than men are oriented toward interpersonal
goals and achievement in interpersonal relationships. This means that women are easy
to make friendship than men. The same case with the organization, it is easy for women
to make so many friends that a man employee.
No consistence difference between men and women in the following areas.
1. Problem solving skills
2. Analytical skills
3. Sociability
4. Learning ability
5. Competitive drive
6. Motivation
c) Experience
There is a widespread belief that experienced leaders bring job relevant in terms of
skills, knowledge, and judgment to their positions. The term, experience, is
Defined in Webster's dictionary as knowledge, skill, or practice derived from
participation in, or direct observation of activities.
This definition presupposes that as an individual gains experience, he or she also gains
knowledge or skills which are then transferable to accomplish subsequent tasks.
Experience, in other words, is generally viewed as a valued resource to be brought to
the new position or acquired during the leaders’ tenure. It is one of the most widely
used predictors in judging an individual's suitability for a job or for a promotion.
Experience affects individual behavior in the following ways:
a) Handling personnel problems like conflicts and firings. One is able to analyse his past
and present experience and find a better way out of the problem, as opposed to the
new employee who has been faced with a crisis. He has no past to refer to or past
experience to aid him to make decision.
Improves one’s communication, listening, oral, written skills.
Communication is important in organization behaviour. Working for an environment for
many years and gaining experience, will improve the way one communicates to others.
Team building skills.
Experience gained through so many years can be used as a point of reference and make
one to be a good team leader. The way a person who has worked in an organization can
solve an issue is not the same way a person who has just reported to work can solve the
same issue.
Confidence and self acceptance.
An employee who has worked for certain department for so many years, will be able to
develop confidence in what he or she does. For example, employees who have just
been recruited in an organization tend to develop some fear of the new environment,
but with time, they adopt to it and thy get lid of the fear.
Sensitivity and respect.
An experienced employee has a sense of sensitivity and respect to the other employees.
Behavioural changes takes time and attitude change takes time, working for the first
time in an organization with different types of people who don’t understand the way
other people perceive things; it is easy to differ in opinion and bring about crisis. But an
experienced employer is sensitive to all this kinds of attitudes and respect to others.
A broader perspective about the organization.
If one works for the organization for a long time, he is able to know the strengths and
weakness of the company. This will translate directly to behaviour adjustment to suit
the current position of the organization
The most important kinds of outcomes from on-the-job experiences for both men and
women appear to be growth in personal and interpersonal leadership skills, knowledge,
and values. These outcomes most typically include improvement in communication
(listening, speaking, and writing) skills, sensitivity to and respect for others, team
building skills, appropriate use of leadership styles, self-confidence, networking,
planning, organizing, and decision making. Additionally, it is common for on-the-job
experiences to further develop administrative management knowledge and skills
specific to the context, as well as to broaden one's perspective about the organization.
d) Age
Age directly affects the job performance of an employee. It is argued that job
production of a person decreases with time as year goes by. However experience is
gained by number of working.Thus aged people are believed to provide a lot of
experience when it comes to management and crisis solving. Organization is keen on
age on the following grounds.
Cooperation
Cooperation is a necessity in any functional organization, and good managers recognize
that people of different ages may cooperate in different ways. Young people who are in
their teens or early twenties may be heavily influenced by the tribal ethos of high
school, while older people may view cooperative acts in a more detached and objective
way. Anything that is assumed about generations, of course, needs to be tempered by
the recognition that individuals never conform completely to a generalization.
Innovation
Innovative individuals may exist in any generation. People who are independent and
creative thinkers tend to be that way throughout their lives, but may express the urge to
create differently at different ages. Younger people may be less tempered by life
experiences and simultaneously bolder and less realistic in their proposals and goals.
Older innovators and inventors will, by definition, have more life experience under their
belts, and are more likely to know how to play the system to avoid drawbacks and
failures in pursuit of their goals.
Obedience
Obedience plays some role in most organizational behavior, whether it is explicit
obedience to orders and regulations or more subtle obedience to social and
organizational norms. A person's relationship to obedience will change over time, with
young people often displaying more blatant episodes of defiance, and older people
tending to be more confident in their beliefs and either accommodating themselves to
the status quo or going their own way without announcing it.
Initiative
Initiative to accomplish a goal can manifest itself in people of any age. Older people may
have worked out more thoroughly what they are trying to accomplish in life, and thus
are often engaged in more long-term thinking than are young people. Younger people
may engage in a larger number of initiatives that each last for a shorter period of time. If
these differences are accommodated in a productive way, older and younger people can
complement one another's strengths within an organization.
Age affects production in the following arguments
1. Job performance declines with increase in age .Don’t expect an old man to be active
the way he used to be so nay years back.
2. Resistance to change. Old employee lacks flexibility. They tend to resist new
technology. In times when an organization this of hiring somebody to do the job that
require a lot of technological machines, one will go for a smart brain of a young talents.
3. The older you become, the less likely you are to quit your job. As workers get older
and they have fewer alternatives for job opportunities. In addition old workers are less
likely to resign than the young workers because their long future tends to provide them
with high wage rates longer.
4. There is believed that production decries with age. Individual skills like speed,
strength and coordination decay over time and that reduces production.
5. Young people are more innovative and more productive in all areas.
e) Physical abilities
Physical ability is the body condition that will determine how one carries out his or her
duties. Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness ie a state of
health and well-being, and specific fitness i.e. a task-oriented definition based on the
ability to perform specific aspects of task. This is the ability to perform manure work
that requires energy as opposed to intellectual ability
Power - the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive
burst of movements. The two components of power are strength and speed. (e.g.
jumping or a sprint start
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Agility - the ability to perform a series of explosive power movements in rapid
succession in opposing directions (e.g. Zigzag running or cutting movements)
Balance - the ability to control the body's position, either stationary (e.g. a
handstand) or while moving (e.g. a gymnastics stunt)
Flexibility - the ability to achieve an extended range of motion without being
impeded by excess tissue, i.e. fat or muscle (e.g. executing a leg split)
Local Muscle Endurance - a single muscle's ability to perform sustained work
(e.g. rowing or cycling)
Cardiovascular Endurance - the heart's ability to deliver blood to working
muscles and their ability to use it e.g. containing hear attach encase of crisis
Strength Endurance - a muscle's ability to perform a maximum contraction time
after time (e.g. continuous explosive rebounding through an entire basketball
game)
Co-ordination- the ability to integrate the above listed components so that
effective movements are achieved.
Physical ability determined the nature of work one can be assigned.
People with physical disabilities are most cases discriminated from opportunities due to
the perceived idea that they will not perform.
Reference
Read more: About Factors Affecting Organizational Behavior | eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/info_8131521_factors-affecting-organizationalbehavior.html#ixzz1nYfh4qTD
Organization behavior by S Robbins and A Judge pg 42.