OB Chapter 2

Nurture

Our socialization, life experiences, and other forms of interaction with the environment.

Nature

Refers to our genetic or hereditary origins - the genes that we inherit from our parents.

Situational Factors

-Individual behavior and performance also depend on the situation -one influence is that the work context constrains or facilitates behavior and performance. -employees who are motivated, skilled, and know their role obligations will nevertheless perform poorly if they lack time, budget, physical work facilities, and other resources. -the other influence is that the work environment provides cues to guide and motivate people.

Role Perceptions

-Along with motivation and ability, employees require accurate role perceptions to perform their jobs well. -Role perceptions refer to how clearly people understand the job duties (roles) assigned to or expected of them. -Role clarity exists in three forms: first, employees have clear role perceptions when they understand the specific duties or consequences for which they are accountable. Second, role clarity exists when employees understand the priority of their various tasks and performance expectations. Third form of role perceptions involves understanding the preferred behaviors or procedures for accomplishing tasks. Role ambiguity exists when an employee knows two or three ways to perform a task, but misunderstands which of these the company prefers.

Ability

-includes both the natural aptitudes and the learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task. -aptitudes are the natural talents that help employees learn specific tasks more quickly and perform them better. -learned capabilities are the physical and mental skills and knowledge you have acquired. -aptitudes and learned capabilities (skills and knowledge) are the main elements of a broader concept called competencies, which are characteristics of a person that result in superior performance.

Motivation

-represents the forces within a person that affect his or her direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior. -direction: refers to the path along which people steer their effort, motivation is goal-directed, not random. -intensity: the amount of effort allocated to the goal. intensity is all about how much people themselves to complete a task. -persistence: refers to the length of time that the individual continues to exert effort toward an objective.

Conscientiousness

Characterizes people who are organized, dependable, goal-focused, thorough, disciplined, methodical, and industrious. People with low conscientiousness tend to be careless, disorganized and less through.

Agreeableness

Describes people who are trusting, helpful, good-natured, considerate, tolerant, selfless, generous, and flexible. People with low agreeableness tend to be uncooperative and intolerant of others' needs as well as more suspicious and self-focused.

Neuroticism

Refers to people who tend to be anxious, insecure, self conscious, depressed, and temperamental. In contrast, people with low neuroticism (high emotional stability) are poised, secure, and calm.

Openness to experience

This dimension is the most complex and has the least agreement among scholars. It generally refers to the extent to which people are imaginative, creative, unconventional, curious, nonconforming, autonomous, and aesthetically perceptive. Those who score low on this dimension tend to be more resistant to change, less open to new ideas and more conventional and fixed in their ways.