Understanding and Managing

Individual Behaviour
Chapter 15
MGT 201

Chapter 15: Understanding and Managing Individual Behavior

Robbins, S. P. & Coulter, M. (2016) Management (13th Edition), Pearson Education Limited
The Focus and Goals of Individual Behavior
• Organizational Behavior (OB)
− Actions of people at work
− OB addresses issues that aren’t obvious
− OB is like an iceberg. It has visible dimensions and
much larger hidden portions
− OB provides managers with considerable insights
into these important but hidden aspects of
organization
The Focus and Goals of Individual Behavior

• Focus of Organizational Behavior

Individual behavior
❖ Attitudes, personality, perception, learning, and
motivation
Group behavior
❖ Norms, roles, team building, leadership, and conflict
Organizational
❖ Structure, culture, and human resource policies and
practices

Individuals in a group setting behave differently from

individuals acting alone
Exhibit 14.1 The Organization as an Iceberg
Goals of Organizational Behavior
− To explain, predict and influence behavior
− Managers need to do this to manage their
employees’ behavior
− Managers’ success depends on getting things done
through people
− To do this, managers need to be able to
• Explain why employees engage in some behavior
• Predict how employees will respond to various
actions taken
• Influence how employee behave
 Five important employee behaviors
Managers are specifically concerned about five important employee
behaviors
−Employee productivity – a performance measure of both efficiency and
effectiveness.
• Managers want to know what will influence efficiency and
effectiveness
−Absenteeism – the failure to report to work
• Difficult to get things done if employees do not show up
• Can never be eliminated but excessive level will have direct impact
on organization’s functioning
−Turn-over – the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an
organization
• Can become a problem with increased recruiting, selection, training
cost and work disruption
• Can never be eliminated but something managers want to minimize
• Organization wants to keep high performing employees
Five important employee behaviors
(Contd)
− Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) – discretionary behavior
that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirement but which
promotes the effective functioning of the organization
• Eg. Helping others in the team, volunteering in the extended job
activities, avoid unnecessary conflicts, make constructive
suggestions about work-group
• Organizations need employees who will do more than their job
duties
• Organizations with such employees will outperform
− Job Satisfaction – an employee’s general attitude toward his/her job
• It is an attitude rather than a behavior
• It is an outcome that concerns managers because satisfied
employees are more likely to show up for work and stay with the
organization
 r
Why
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•Psychological factors affecting employee behavior
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Employee
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Organizational
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Psychological Factors – Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction and Productivity
The correlation between satisfaction and productivity is fairly
strong.
Organizations with more satisfied employees are more effective
than those with fewer satisfied employees. Job Job Satisfaction
and Productivity
• Satisfaction and Absenteeism
Satisfied employees tend to have lower levels of absenteeism,
although satisfied employees are bound to take company
approved days off (e.g. sick days)
• Job Satisfaction and Turnover
Satisfied employees have lower levels of turnover; dissatisfied
employees have higher levels of turnover.
Turnover is affected by the level of employee performance.
Psychological Factors – Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
The level of job satisfaction for frontline employees is
related to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Interaction with dissatisfied customers can increase
an employee’s job dissatisfaction.
Actions to increase job satisfaction for customer
service workers:
❖ Hire upbeat and friendly employees.
❖ Reward superior customer service.
❖ Provide a positive work climate.
❖ Use attitude surveys to track employee satisfaction.
Psychological Factors – Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship
Behavior (OCB)
Relationship between job satisfaction and OCB is
tempered by perceptions of fairness
Individual OCB is influenced by work group OCB

• Job Satisfaction and Workplace Misbehavior

Dissatisfied employees will respond somehow
Not easy to predict exactly how they’ll respond
Psychological Factors – Attitudes
• Job Involvement
The degree to which an employee identifies with his or her
job, actively participates in it, and considers his or her
performance to be important to his or her self-worth.
❖ High levels of commitment are related to fewer absences and
lower resignation rates.

• Organizational Commitment
Is the degree to which an employee identifies with a
particular organization and its goals and wishes to
maintain membership in the organization.
Leads to lower levels of both absenteeism and turnover.
Psychological Factors –
Personality
• Personality
The unique combination of emotional, thought and
behavioral patterns that affect how a person reacts
and interacts with others.
− We are interested in personality because, just like
attitudes, it too affects how and why people behave the
way they do
− Two approaches to classify personality traits have
received most attention
• Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• The Big Five Model
Classifying Personality Traits
• Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)
A general personality assessment tool that
measures the personality of an individual using four
categories:
❖ Social interaction: Extrovert or Introvert (E or I)
❖ Preference for gathering data: Sensing or Intuitive (S or N)
❖ Preference for decision making: Feeling or Thinking (F or T)
❖ Style of decision making: Perceptive or Judgmental (P or J)
 Chapter 4: Personality
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: (MBTI)
Most used personality assessment instrument
Extroverted (E) Vs Introverted (I)
( Outgoing, sociable) ( Quiet & Shy)

Sensing (S) Vs Intuitive(N)

( Practical, prefer routine & order) (Unconscious, look at big
picture)
Thinking (T) Vs Feeling (F)
(Reason, logic, handle problem) (Value, Emotion)
Judging (J) Vs Perceiving (P)
(Want control, prefer ordered, (Flexible, Spontaneous)
structure)

Can be used for self awareness & provide career guide.

Criticism: Unrelated to job performance so managers probably not use
this tool.
 Exhibit 13.4 Examples of MBTI® Types
Type Description

INFJ (introvert, intuitive, Quietly forceful, conscientious, and concerned for others. Such
feeling, judgmental) people succeed by perseverance, originality, and the desire to do
whatever is needed or wanted. They are often highly respected for
their uncompromising principles.

ESTP (extrovert, sensing, Blunt and sometimes insensitive. Such people are matter-of-fact
thinking, perceptive) and do not run back, worry or hurry. They enjoy whatever comes
along. They work best with real things that can be assembled or
disassembled.

ISFP (introvert, sensing, Sensitive, kind, modest, shy, and quietly friendly. Such people
feeling, perceptive) strongly dislike run back disagreements and will avoid them. They
are loyal followers and quite often are relaxed about getting things
done.

ENTJ (extrovert, intuitive, Warm, friendly, candid, and decisive; also usually skilled in
thinking, judgmental) anything that requires reasoning and intelligent talk, but may
sometimes overestimate what they are capable of doing.

Source: Based on I. Briggs-Myers, Introduction to Type (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980), pp. 7–8.
Classifying Personality Traits
• Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)
− Organizations using MBTI include – Apple, AT&T,
Citigroup, GE, 3M and many hospitals and
educational institutions, the US Armed Force
− However, there is no hard evidence to support the
validity of MBTI
− How could MBTI help managers?
• Proponents of the assessment believe it is important to
know these personality types because they influence the
way people interact and solve problems
• MBTI has been used to help managers select employees
who are well matched to certain types of jobs
The Big-Five Model
− A five-factor model that encompass most of the
significant variations in human personality
− The five personality traits in the Big Five Model are:
● Extraversion: Sociable, talkative, and assertive
● Agreeableness: Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting
● Conscientiousness: Responsible, dependable, persistent,
and achievement oriented
− predicts job performance in a number of jobs
● Emotional Stability: Calm, enthusiastic, and secure or tense,
nervous, and insecure
● Openness to Experience: Imaginative, artistically sensitive,
and intellectual
− More than just a personality framework – research
has shown important relationship exist between these
personality dimensions and job performance
Psychological Factors – Perception
• Perception
A process by which individuals give meaning (reality)
to their environment by organizing and interpreting
their sensory impressions.
• Factors influencing perception:
− The perceiver: individual’s personal characteristics
will heavily influence the interpretation – attitudes,
personality, interest, motives, biases, etc.
− The target: characteristics of the target –
distinctiveness, contrast, similarity
− The situation: the context in which the object is seen
– time, location, light, color, other situational factors –
draw attention or distract from the target
Exhibit 14.6 Perception Challenges: What Do You
See?
Shortcuts Used in Judging Others
• Assumed Similarity
Assuming that others are more like us than they
actually are.
• Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of our perception of a
group he or she is a part of.
• Halo Effect
Forming a general impression of a person on the
basis of a single characteristic of that person.
Implication for managers
− Employees react to perceptions (not to reality)
− Pay close attention to how employees perceive their
jobs and mgt actions
Psychological Factors – Learning
• Learning
Any relatively permanent change in behavior that
occurs as a result of experience.
❖ Almost all complex behavior is learned.
❖ Learning is a continuous, life-long process.
❖ The principles of learning can be used to shape
behavior.
• Theories of learning:
Operant conditioning
Social learning
Learning (cont’d)
• Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
The theory that behavior is a function of its
consequences and is learned through experience.
Operant behavior: voluntary or learned behaviors
❖ Behaviors are learned by making rewards
contingent to behaviors.
❖ Behavior that is rewarded (positively reinforced) is
likely to be repeated.
❖ Behavior that is punished or ignored is less likely to
be repeated.
Learning (cont’d)
• Social Learning
The theory that individuals learn through their
observations of others and through their direct
experiences.
Shaping Behavior : A Managerial Tool
• Shaping Behavior
Attempting to “mold” individuals by guiding their
learning in graduated steps such that they learn to
behave in ways that most benefit the organization.
Shaping methods:
❖ Positive reinforcement: rewarding desired
behaviors.
❖ Negative reinforcement: removing an unpleasant
consequence once the desired behavior is exhibited.
❖ Punishment: penalizing an undesired behavior.
❖ Extinction: eliminating a reinforcement for an
undesired behavior.
Shaping Behavior
• Implication for Managers
− Manage employee learning by means of rewards
• A positive or negative reinforcement strengthen a
desired behavior
− tend to increase its frequency
• punishment and extinction weaken an undesired
behavior
− tend to decrease its frequency
− managers should serve as models
• set examples of the desired behavior