Organizational Behavior - Chapter 3

Type A personality

impatient, competitive, ambitious, and uptight

Emotional intelligence (EI)

an interpersonal capability that includes the ability to perceive and express emotions, to understand and use them, and to manage emotions in oneself and other people.

The Concept of Fit

The organization's performance rests upon the alignment of each of the components-the work, people, structure, and culture-with all of the others. The tighter the fit-or, put another way, the greater the congruence-the higher the performance.

Self-esteem

refers to our feelings of self-worth and our liking or disliking of ourselves. Self-esteem is positively related to job performance and learning.

Tolerance for ambiguity

reflects the tendency to view ambiguous situations as either threatening or desirable.

Personality

relatively stable set of psychological attributes that distinguish one person from another.

Type B personality

relaxed and easygoing and less overtly competitive than Type A

Accommodators - Basic learning styles

rely mainly on active experimentation and concrete experience, and focus on risk taking, opportunity seeking, and action. Accommodators tend to deal with people easily and specialize in action-oriented jobs, such as marketing and sales.

Tolerance for Risk (Risk Propensity)

the degree to which a person is comfortable accepting risk, willing to take chances and to make risky decisions

The "Big Five" Framework

-Agreeableness -Conscientiousness -neuroticism -Extroversion/introversion -openness -The potential value of the Big Five framework is that it encompasses an integrated set of traits that appear to be valid predictors of certain behaviors in certain situations. Thus, managers who can both understand the framework and assess these traits in their employees are in a good position to understand how and why they behave as they do.

Kolb four basic learning styles

-Convergers -Divergers -Assimilators -Accommodators

Extroversion/Introversion - the Big five

-Extraversion: reflects a person's comfort level with relationships. -introvert: tends to be less comfortable in social situations. -Research suggests that extroverts tend to be higher overall job performers than introverts and that they are more likely to be attracted to jobs based on personal relationships, such as sales and marketing positions.

Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences

-Linguistic: words and language -Logical-mathematical: logic and numbers -Musical: music, rhythm, and sound -Bodily-kinesthetic: body movement and control -Spatial-visual: images and space -Interpersonal: other people's feelings -Intrapersonal: self-awareness

Neuroticism - Big five

-People who are relatively more neurotic tend to experience unpleasant emotions such as anger, anxiety, depression, and feelings of vulnerability more often than do people who are relatively less neurotic. -People with less neuroticism might be expected to better handle job stress, pressure, and tension. Their stability might also lead them to be seen as being more reliable than their less stable counterparts.

Five dimensions comprising emotional intelligence

-Self-awareness: being aware of what you are feeling -Self-motivation: persisting in the face of obstacles, setbacks, and failures -Self-management: managing your own emotions and impulses -Empathy: sensing how others are feeling -Social skills: effectively handling the emotions of others

Machiavellianism

-describe behavior directed at gaining power and controlling the behavior of others. -More Machiavellian individuals tend to be rational and unemotional, may be willing to lie to attain their personal goals, put little emphasis on loyalty and friendship, and enjoy manipulating others' behavior. -Less Machiavellian individuals are more emotional, less willing to lie to succeed, value loyalty and friendship highly, and get little personal pleasure from manipulating others.

Locus of control

-extent to which people believe that their behavior has a real effect on what happens to them. -Some people, for example, believe that if they work hard they will succeed. They may also believe that people who fail do so because they lack ability or motivation. People who believe that individuals are in control of their lives are said to have an internal locus of control.

Realistic job previews (RJPs)

-involve the presentation of both positive and potentially negative information to job candidates. -RJPs may be useful for organizations trying to reduce turnover rates for jobs that departing employees say were not what they expected when they accepted job offers.

Self-efficacy

-our confidence in our ability to cope, perform, and be successful on a specific task. It is possible to have high self-esteem but low self-efficacy for certain tasks. -Self-efficacy is a key factor influencing motivation and engagement in an activity.

Individual differences

-personal attributes that vary from one person to another -Individual differences may be physical, psychological, and emotional.

Agreeableness - Big five

-refers to a person's ability to get along with others -highly agreeable people are better at developing good working relationships with coworkers, subordinates, and higher-level managers, whereas less agreeable people are not likely to have particularly good working relationships. The same pattern might extend to relationships with customers, suppliers, and other key organizational constituents.

Conscientiousness - Big five

-refers to the extent to which a person can be counted on to get things done. In general, research suggests that being strong on conscientiousness is often a good predictor of job performance for many jobs.

General self-efficacy

-reflects a generalized belief that we will be successful at whatever challenges or tasks we might face.

openness - Big five

-reflects a person's rigidity of beliefs and range of interests. -People with more openness might be expected to be better performers due to their flexibility and the likelihood that they will be better accepted by others in the organization. Openness may also encompass a person's willingness to accept change; people with high levels of openness may be more receptive to change, whereas people with little openness may resist change

Authoritarianism

-the extent to which a person believes that power and status differences are appropriate within hierarchical social systems such as organizations. -A person who is highly authoritarian may accept directives or orders from someone with more authority purely because the other person is "the boss."

Person-job fit

-the fit between a person's abilities and the demands of the job, and the fit between a person's desires and motivations and the attributes and rewards of a job. -Research suggests that person-job fit leads to higher job performance, satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to stay with the company. People differ in their personality and motivations as well as their skills. Organizations must consider individual differences beyond skills when making hiring decisions.

Person-vocation fit

-the fit between a person's interests, abilities, values, and personality and a profession -understanding person-vocation fit can still be useful to organizations and managers. Companies wanting to develop their own future leaders, or smaller organizations that need employees to fill multiple roles, may be able to use vocational interests in determining whether job applicants would be a good fit with the organization's future needs.

Person-organization fit

-the fit between an individual's values, beliefs, and personality and the values, norms, and culture of the organization. -The strength of this fit influences important organizational outcomes including job performance, retention, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. -A good place to start is to identify those qualifications, competencies, and traits that relate to the organization's strategy, values, and processes and hire people with those characteristics. -Employees must be able and willing to adapt to a company by learning, negotiating, enacting, and maintaining the behaviors appropriate to the company's environment.

General mental ability

capacity to rapidly and fluidly acquire, process, and apply information.

Assimilators - Basic learning styles

depend on abstract conceptualization and reflective observation. These individuals tend to be more concerned about abstract concepts and ideas than about people. They also tend to focus on the logical soundness and preciseness of ideas, rather than the ideas' practical values; they tend to work in research and planning units.

Convergers - Basic learning styles

depend primarily on active experimentation and abstract conceptualization to learn. People with this style are superior in technical tasks and problems and inferior in interpersonal learning settings.

Divergers - Four basic learning styles

depend primarily on concrete experience and reflective observation. People with this style tend to organize concrete situations from different perspectives and structure their relationships into a meaningful whole. They are superior in generating alternative hypotheses and ideas, and tend to be imaginative and people or feeling-oriented.