How personality affect organization - Essay Example

Any organization needs ‘different’ people within it in order to maximize performance and effectiveness through the unique contribution of each individual’. Critically discuss this statement supporting your answer with material from articles, journal, books and experience. Marks and Spencer example of recruiting similar people; are people similar? How personality affect organization and in what way? Table of contents I. Introduction 3 II. People and similarity in a workplace environment IIa. Culture 4 IIb. Personal experiences 5 IIc. Ethnicity 6 III. Differences among employees 6 IV. Personality in the literature 8 A. Evolutionary Personality Psychology 9 B. Evolutionary Causes for Individual Differences 9 C. Sociology of Generational Effects 10 V. Personality assessment – methods and implications 10 VI. Personality in the workplace – influences and interactions VIa. General effects 12 VIb. The phenomenon of workplace deviance 13 VIc. Influence of the personal empowerment 14 VId. Personal behaviour and organizational performance 15 VII. Influence of personality to an organization – examples VIIa. Workplaces characterized by similarities among employees – the case of Marks and Spencer 16 VIIb. Ford Motor Company – Diversity in the workplace 18 VIIc. Comparison of the above two cases 18 VIII. Conclusion 19 I. Introduction In order to describe the structure and the operations of a specific organizational environment we should primarily proceed to an investigation and analysis of the employees’ behaviour towards the challenges set during the organization’s daily operations. In the above context, personality has been proved to have a significant influence on the employee’s performance as well as to the whole organizational development. Current paper examines the above interaction and tries to locate the level at which personality can affect the performance of the organization. Moreover, the particular characteristics of personality are being examined in order to locate the influences that each type of personality (as can formulated under the above examination) can have to the organizational behaviour. The specific effects that personality can have to an organizational behaviour are also analyzed in order to identify any possible points of the corporate strategy that should be differentiated in order to offer a more cooperative working environment. In order for the above study to reach a secure result, all the aspects of personality as can observed in an organizational behaviour are presented using a comparative analysis of the findings related with each particular type of personality. Furthermore, a reference to the case of Marks and Spenser – as a workplace environment that used to be characterized by people of similar racial and behavioural characteristics - has been considered as necessary in order to provide an example of the role of personality to the organizational behaviour. Marks and Spencer is also opposed to a multi – ethnic workplace environment in order to find points of interaction and possible influences Moreover, the views of literature are being presented in order to support any suggested assumption while a series of data revealed in the area of empirical research has been proved as necessary to the completion of the above task. II. People and similarity in a workplace environment When referring to an organizational environment, the issue of similarity regarding the employees’ personalities cannot be examined precisely especially when the specific organization operates in many different commercial areas. Moreover, the location of specific criteria for the explanation of similarity in human behaviour is a rather difficult task. IIa. Culture The study of Au et al. (2002) refers especially to the influences of the cultural background of employees’ to the organization’s performance and development. According to their research, the existence of differentiations in the cultural backgrounds among the employees of a specific firm cannot be considered as a factor of influence of the organizational performance even if the diversity caused because of these differences is extended. In the same context, Brief et al. (2002) found that the performance of an organization cannot be influenced solely by the fact that a series of differences can be observed among its employees. In fact it has been found that even in cases that no differentiations in the cultural backgrounds can be observed in a specific workplace, severe cases of deviance may occur which could not be regarded as expected. Moreover, the research made by Kikoski (1999, 311) suggests that ‘men, women, and minorities do not share a common culture of organizational life; rather, each group identifies, defines and organizes its experience in the organization in unique ways’. IIb. Personal experiences Another issue that should be examined in this context is the fact that, by nature, the absolute similarity in employees’ behaviour cannot be considered as possible. The employees are human beings and they tend to be influenced by the events taking place in the internal and the external organizational environment as well as their personal experiences. For this reason, it can be expected that a firm’s employees will react differently even under the same conditions. As an example, when having to face a series of negative events employees inside the same organization usually behave in a different manner in accordance with their personal aspects on the specific problem (Carr et al., 2005). The communication with the management team can be proved really helpful especially when a specific event has been interpreted on a wrong basis. Moreover, the human resources department can have a decisive role setting the necessary principles for the elimination of the inequality among the employees and the review of all human – related cases under objective and fair criteria (Cianni et al., 1995). However, the existence of differentiations among the particular human behaviours can create obstacles towards the success of a specific human resources policy even if the measures taken by the management team can be considered as effective and appropriate for this issue. The role of similarity – more precisely of the absence of similarity – can be viewed under these conditions as crucial towards the formulation of the final reaction. Moreover, it should be noticed that similarity as mentioned under these terms should not be confused with the possible absence of racial differentiations among the employees (Chattopadhyay et al. 2002, Brass et al., 2001). The role of demography to the organizational behaviour has not been proved in any case to have a significant importance regarding the formulation of the employees’ attitudes towards specific events. IIc. Ethnicity One of the elements that may lead to the differentiation of personalities in a workplace environment is ethnicity. Although the specific issue has been examined a lot and regulated both from national and international laws, there are still cases that the country of origin can influence the position of an employee in a workplace environment and as a result it can also affect his personality mostly inside the borders of the above environment. Milton (2002) examined the above issue and found that ethnicity has not been found to be directly connected with the human behaviour, however it can influence the general behaviour towards a specific employee and it can in this way create a differentiation in his personality in accordance with the pressures made to him by the workplace environment. III. Differences among employees One of the main characteristics of a workplace environment is the diversity referred to a series of factors, like the age, the gender, the race and the educational level of the employees. According to the study of Ferris (1993) diversity can be viewed as a problem regarding the organizational structure and operations, however it can also be considered as a challenge that can lead to the increase of the business performance. The prerequisite for such a development is that the people participated in a firm’s workforce should be treated equally and should be offered the chance to use their competencies aiming to the increase of the organizational performance (Bain et al., 2004). In this context, diversity can be viewed either as a part of the corporate strategy or can be connected directly with the values and the abilities of a firm’s employees (Claire et al., 2001). Diversity can be observed in many aspects of daily activities and it can takes many different forms. According to Ferris et al. (1993, 41) ‘the notion of diversity is one of differences in people, and as such suggests different things to different people; some may consider diversity as a problem, or challenge, that hampers organizational effectiveness; others may consider diversity an opportunity to expand valuable perspectives and ideas, thus enhancing organizational effectiveness; diversity may suggest images of alienation of organizational constituencies from one another, it may suggest images of isolated individuals based on some defining characteristics, or it may suggest images of a colourful and interesting environment’. The analysis and the presentation of the diversity in the workplace area cannot be completed without the examination of its particular elements. In this context, according to a definition of diversity given by Hubbard (T& D, 2003, 43), diversity is mainly characterized by a series of differences and similarities as they can be observed in the organizational environment. Furthermore, diversity can have a lot of forms, referring to behavioural patterns, to differences related with the race/ gender/ age, to differences related with the particular organizational departments and to ones referring to specific strategic planning. In the same context, Black (1994) found that the differences in the workplace can refer to a series of issues, like the race, the gender, the educational level or even the mental conditions of the employees involved. Moreover, they can involve to a number of employees or even to just one employee (e.g. in cases of fraud, sabotage etc.). In the last occasion, i.e. when referring into specific facts, the issue under examination is not the workplace diversity as an organizational phenomenon, but the identification of the negative events that led to such behaviour (Jehn et al., 1999). Referring to this issue, Dibattista (1996) studied the issue of sabotage inside an organization and found that inappropriate management decisions can have really severe results for the organizational development. The explanation of such an assumption is based to the fact that in cases of sabotage, the employee involved has been found to be urged to such a reaction from reasons related with an unfair managerial decision (even if this inequality was considered as such just from the interested employee without having the criteria to be characterized as unfair regarding its content and its scope). IV. Personality in the literature The role of the personality to the organizational behaviour has been studied a lot in the literature. In this context, the following theories (Furnham, 1999) have been stated in order to examine the influence of personality on the organizational environment: a) the Classic Personality Theory which combines the findings of the empirical research with behaviours observed inside a workplace, b) the Classic Occupational Psychology/ Organizational Behaviour. This theory begins with the organizational environment but then focuses on the personal views, qualities and experiences in order to explain a specific behaviour, c) the Work – specific Individual Difference Measure. According to this theory in order to explain the influence of personality on a specific workplace, we should proceed to the formulation of a particular personality measure which is going to be used for the above evaluation and d) the Biographical or Case – History Research according to which the influence of personality in a workplace should be examined under the experiences of each particular employee using biographical elements as criteria of personality assessment. Moreover, the following theories have developed in order to explain personality aspects as can observed in all parts of everyday activities. A. Evolutionary Personality Psychology Evolutionary personality theory focuses ‘on the why of behavior, rather than the how of biological models, or the what of descriptive taxonomies’ (Revelle, 1995, 296). It is "best regarded as a theory about the origins, rather than the content of human nature" (Buss 1991, p. 463). It has been described as providing a grand framework that "links the field with what is known about the processes that govern all forms of life [and identifies] the central human goals and the psychological and behavioral strategic means deployed to obtain these goals" (p. 486). B. Evolutionary Causes for Individual Differences Although ‘focusing on general laws, evolutionary theory tries to explain individual differences; the problem of reconciling genetic diversity within species with principles of evolutionary adaptation is complex. (Revelle, 1005, 296). Moreover ‘both the psychological universals that constitute human nature and the genetic differences that contribute to individual variation are the product of the evolutionary process’ In this context, personality is from an evolutionary perspective, analyzable as either (a) an adaptation, (b) an incidental by-product of an adaptation, (c) the product of noise in the system, or (d) some combination of these" (Tooby & Cosmides 1990, p. 19). C. Sociology of Generational Effects Sociological approaches to personality ‘are strikingly different from evolutionary personality theory in terms of level of analysis, but they are similar with respect to the level of generality; the experience of war, national economic collapse, or the threat of nuclear extinction have had profound effects on those who have experienced them’ although these are universal experiences for all alive at the time, only generational cohorts share both the experience as well as the timing at the same stage in their lives’ (Revelle, 1995, 296) V. Personality assessment – methods and implications On the other hand, Black (1994) examined the role of psychological test to the evaluation of the employee’s personality. His research is based on the fact that the use of personality tests has been extended today in most workplaces and therefore a series of principles should be set regarding their conduction as well as the evaluation of their results. In this context, it is noticed that personality tests are normally used to measure a series of particular human characteristics like the motivation, the emotions and the attitudes. Moreover, it is also highlighted that both the private and the public sector have introduced this type of tests in order to check certain psychological aspects of prospects employees. More specifically, according to a survey made by Black (1994) a very useful tool for the identification of the employee’s particular behavioral characteristics is the personality test. The above researcher stated that ‘personality tests are a form of psychological testing employers often use for screening job applicants and for making promotion and other job-related decisions; these tests measure motivational, emotional, interpersonal and attitudinal characteristics; they are primarily concerned with affective or non-intellectual behavior’. Moreover, according to the research made by Black ‘both the public and private sectors use personality tests while a survey of 208 companies revealed that forty-six percent employ some form of personality tests; in addition, public employers such as the armed forces and police departments have commonly used such tests’. Regarding the above issue, Ozer (1994) considers that the measurement of particular aspects of the employees should be conducted through a personal assessment procedure. The above procedure is less traumatic for the candidates whereas it has the advantage of the multi-level examination of the personal reactions under certain circumstances, a fact that can be considered as an advantage towards the personality tests which can sometimes offer false impressions. Moreover, as it has been found by Ozer et al. (1994, 357) personality assessment ‘as a scientific endeavor, seeks to determine those characteristics that constitute important individual differences in personality, to develop accurate measures of such attributes, and to explore fully the consequential meanings of these identified and measured characteristics’. VI. Personality in the workplace – influences and interactions VIa. General effects As it has been found in the literature (Ash, 2001) the most important personality dimensions are the following five: a) agreeableness, b) openness to experience, c) extraversion, d) preferences for different types of manager, e) subordinate relationships within managerial job. The above dimensions as referring mostly to the workplace have been used in order to explain the behaviour of individuals under certain conditions in a given workplace. Moreover, according to the findings of Ash (2001) employees tend to differentiate in a workplace environment even under similar conditions while the personal characteristics of behaviour seem to be the most significant factor that influences the person’s reaction inside an organization. The workplace diversity and the general organization behaviour can influence the performance of the employees at a significant level. In this context, personality can interact directly with the particular strategies followed by companies regarding specifically the human resource management sector. Furthermore, these strategies will affect the performance of the firm to all its sectors. According to the study of Carr et al. (2005, 149) ‘whether we are discussing performance management, boundary-less careers, learning organisations, or employers of choice, a central underlying concern, at work today, is the enhancement of personal achievement’ (Carr et al., 2005, 149). According to the study of Barsade et al. (1995, 423) the role of personal behaviour to the organizational performance has changed through the years. More specifically, it has been found that ‘most researchers in organizational behavior and psychology now accept that behavior is a function of characteristics of the person and the environment and reject the extreme views that either personal characteristics, such as dispositions, or situational characteristics, such as organizational culture, entirely predict behavior; a current challenge stemming from this interactional perspective is to understand when and why certain peoples behavior corresponds to or deviates from their personality across time or situations; this is particularly important to understanding cooperation at work - why some people cooperate with their coworkers and others dont’. VIb. The phenomenon of workplace deviance On the other hand, Henle (2005) has studied the issue of workplace deviance as it can be observed often in an organizational environment. The researcher describes the workplace deviance as a series of violations from the employees’ side regarding the policies and the principles set by a specific organization. It is also noticed that the above behaviour can have many different aspects either towards the organization or the other employees. As for the explanation of such behaviour, there are several theoretical aspects that can be considered as logical interpretations of the phenomenon. According to the most common one, workplace deviance has to be connected with the specific organization, i.e. it is the core product of a specific organizational behaviour. However, there is also the opinion that the personality of a specific employee should be considered as the sole factor that causes such behaviour. It should be noticed here that regarding the prediction of workplace deviance there are two perspectives as have stated by Henle (2005, 247). The first, ‘situation-based, advocates that certain characteristics of the work environment predispose organizations to employee deviance; that is, workplace deviance is solely a product of the organization in which employees work; the second perspective uses person-based explanations to expound why employees vary in their propensity to be deviant; according to this perspective, personality dictates how individuals will behave irrespective of the environment or situation they are in; the goal of this perspective is to identify consistency in individual differences across many different situations and times. Indeed, a commonly-held belief is that there is a personal profile of someone likely to be deviant’. VIc. Influence of the personal empowerment Spreitzer (1995) examined the role of intrapersonal empowerment in the workplace. She found that when activating in a specific workplace, individuals tend to use the procedure of psychological empowerment in order to gain control over their responsibilities and their tasks but also to formulate an assumption for the organization environment generally. In this context, the behaviour towards the proposed strategy is highly influenced by the personal views and expectations while the role of management team is considered limited to specific activities presenting elements of similarity among the particular managers. More specifically, according to the view of Spreitzer (1995, 601) psychological empowerment is ‘a process by which individuals gain control over their lives; psychological empowerment includes intrapersonal (i.e., cognitive empowerment), interactional (i.e., how people think about and relate to their environment), and behavioral (i.e., taking action and engaging issues) components; this definition of empowerment focuses on an intrapersonal conceptualization of empowerment because the intrapersonal component is believed to be the most important mediator of the relationship between social structure and behaviour; although studied extensively in psychology, the intrapersonal empowerment construct has only recently begun to receive adequate conceptualization and operationalization in the management literature; because empowerment theory proposes that empowerment takes on different meanings in different settings, it is important to conceptualize empowerment specifically for a workplace context to differentiate its meaning from, say, a community context’. VId. Personal behaviour and organizational performance One of the most important elements for the improvement of the organizational behaviour is the workplace cooperation (Barsade et al., 1995, 423) which ‘has been conceptualized as the willful contribution of employee effort to the successful completion of interdependent organizational tasks; cooperative behaviour is often manifested in members willingness to work with others, even when it is not formally demanded, and in preferences for being rewarded for working alone or in groups; identifying the conditions under which members are likely to display cooperative behaviour is difficult, however, since cooperative behaviour can be influenced both by personality, or ones tendency to pursue individualistic or collective goals, and by formal and informal control systems that reward individual achievement or cooperative efforts’. One of the aspects of personality, this of aggression, and its influence to the organizational behaviour has been studied by Coombs et al. (2004). According to the study of Coombs et al. (2004, 483) workplace aggression is defined as ‘perceived intentional efforts by individuals to harm others with whom they work, or have worked, or the organizations in which they are currently, or were previously, employed; this broad definition includes verbal aggression, which are messages that are perceived to be hurtful, bullying, and workplace incivility, low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target; while no physical harm is inflicted, communicative-based workplace aggression is still harmful as it can damage the psyche, work relationships, employee performance, and turnover; tolerance of verbal aggression may even be a precursor to more extreme behaviours like forms of physical violence; an understanding of organization members perceptions of the appropriateness (or acceptability) of various forms of workplace aggression is central to managers and researchers attempts to assess and reduce the problem’. Moreover, always in the context of the above study ‘most workplace aggression is enacted through communication, communication is a mechanism for responding to workplace aggression, and it is a primary means for delivering policies designed to eliminate workplace aggression; the assessment of workplace aggression tolerance offers a means of evaluating organizational success or failure at reducing workplace aggression tendencies; benchmarking can establish a pre-intervention workplace aggression tolerance assessment against which later measures can be compared’ Coombs et al. (2004, 483). VII. Influence of personality to an organization – examples VIIa. Workplaces characterized by similarities among employees – the case of Marks and Spencer An example of the existence of similarities in the personality of employees can be the case of Marks and Spencer [10]. However, these similarities were not the product of a free will but more the result of an intensive and strict control of the management team which had as a priority the existence of similar behaviour among all employees in the organizational workplace. More specifically, in the past and for more than 70 years the workplace environment in Marks and Spencer was characterized by a strict labour policy which changed recently. According to this strategy, which is also known as ‘Marksist’ labour policy, was characterized by the existence of specific rules regarding all aspects of employees’ behaviour in the workplace with the management of the human resources area to be characterized as strong ‘paternalistic’. Employees had to behave in accordance with a series of rules set by the management and their activities in the workplace were under intensive control. Today, it has to be noticed that the specific company follows diversity – friendly policy regarding the employment procedure (a series of specific programs like the WorkWell program have been introduced in order to differentiate the current labour policy of the company from the one followed in the past). More specifically, the firm recognizes the need for the existence of different views and qualities among its employees and for this reason it has adopted a strategy that permits to everyone that possess the required skills to participate as a candidate to the relevant employment schema (see also Lane et al., 2004). Moreover, the company applies an employment procedure that offers to all of its employees the chances to develop themselves and to get involved in all the firm’s activities in order to decide the specific department in which they could achieve a high performance. VIIb. Ford Motor Company – Diversity in the workplace A company that has been a leader in the application of diversity in the workplace has been Ford Motor. According to an article published in Ebony (2001) the company’s founding father, Henry Ford, ‘will be remembered as one of the nations first businessmen who provided a level playing field’. More specifically, his philosophy was: ‘Dont just employ people, but work with them and empower them, regardless of the colour of their skin; he fostered integration, fair hiring practices, equal work for equal pay, and diversity in the workplace during some of the most turbulent times in American History; as early as 1913, Ford Motor Company took initiatives to diversify its workplace when Henry Ford promised $5 a day for all of his workers when most Blacks were earning less than $5 a week’ It should also be noticed that ‘the companys tradition of personal and community empowerment has been expanded over the years; diversity in its workforce, as well as among its automobile dealers and suppliers, continues to be a priority for Ford; minorities make up 23.2 percent of Ford Motor Companys employees and 14.7 percent of its officer and managerial personnel’ (Ebony, 2001). VIIc. Comparison of the above two cases The policies of the above two companies regarding the workplace diversity can be valued only under the geographical and financial conditions of their operation. Marks and Spencer is a company established in a very difficult commercial environment. Under the economic environment of that period, the company followed a strategy that seems logical in order to secure its survival. In this context, the introduction and the application of a ‘strict’ policy regarding the diversity in workplace environment can be considered as justified. On the other hand, Ford Motors established in a time period when the commerce was flourishing in U.S. while the financial indexes of that period also presented an image on continuous and radical development. Under these circumstances we could say that the specific company had the basis to guarantee the diversity in its workplace since its foundation, a rather risky strategy. However, due to the multinational character of the workforce of that period, the specific strategy was proved as the most appropriate method to achieve a fast and impressive performance. VII. Conclusion The examination of the influence of personality on the organizational behaviour has led to the assumption that the interaction between the firm and the employee is intensive and constant. Moreover, it has been found that the diversity as a phenomenon does not occur only in the lower organizational levels but can equally appear in the managerial department. On the other hand, the existence of differences among a firm’s employees cannot be considered as disadvantage but should be viewed instead as a challenging experience for every organization. In this context, it has been proved that the existence of diversity is not connected with the negative phenomena that can be often observed in an organizational environment, like the fraud or the sabotage which are more individual – related. 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