Chapter 4: Personality and Values

Nature of personality

Before going deeper into the subject, we define the term personality as one’s total sum
of behaviors, reactions, and interactions with others. In organisations, HRM departments
use personality tests to measure and forecast the behavior of prospective employee.

The common method of measuring personality is self-report survey – one evaluates

himself on different variables. The other means of personality measurement is
the observer-rating survey, which is a more independent assessment – a person
observes and rates personality of another person (employee, prospective employee, etc).
Claimed to be more successful in the context of organisations.

Personality results from heredity and interactions with an environment. People’s

personalities can change over the course of time. Moreover, the notion of personality
traits appears at this point – these traits are enduring, rather unchanging attributes that
characterise behavior. If one is often shy and/or aggressive and performs these
behaviors often, we can call shyness and/or aggression his personality traits.

Models which organise traits

There are two main models which recognise and organise traits:

 The Myers- Briggs Type Indicator

 Big Five Model

The Myers- Briggs Type Indicator  the most common personality-assessment tool.
It’s a test which consists of 100 questions related to behaviors, feelings, and attitudes in
different situations. After doing the test, a person can be classified to the following
groups:

 Extroverted or introverted – extraverted types are gregarious, social, assertive,

outgoing
 Sensing or intuitive – sensing types like routine, are practical-oriented, pay
attention to details
 Thinking or feeling – thinking types are logical and analytical when facing
problems
 Judging or perceiving – judging types like the ordered, structured world, need for
control

Disadvantages of the model: a person must be classified either to one type or another –
cannot be in-between the types, and do not reflect job performance.

Big Five Model  personality-assessment tool which recognises 5 aspects:

 Extraversion: reflect one’s level of comfort with relationships

 Agreeableness -> describing someone who is warm, cooperative, easily reaches
compromises and is trusting.
 Conscientiousness -> describing someone who is organised, determined,
responsible and reliable.
  Emotional stability -> handling stress measure. Negative emotional stability
relates to people who get angry/nervous/upset easily, irritated quickly, feel
insecure, and lack confidence.
 Openness to experience -> describes curiosity of world or some of its aspects,
creativity, interest in innovations, novelties.

Studies have demonstrated the relationship between personality dimensions and job
performance. Critique: the Big Five model does not represent all relevant traits that a
personality can have.

The other traits, which are not shown in the existing 2 models, but are highly relevant to
OB are:

 Core-self evaluation -> level to which one likes or dislikes himself, whether he
thinks he is effective, able to perform tasks and have control over his surrounding.
People with positive core-self evaluation usually perform at work better.
 Machiavellianism -> level of one’s being rational & practical, goal-oriented, very
good in bargaining, keeping distance with showing (experiencing) emotions,
thinking that ends justify means. People with high level of Machiavellianism tend
to manipulate others, appear as very persuasive, and are good in negotiations.
 Narcissism -> people who are high in narcissism level are good leaders, but are
perceived by others as arrogant – they want the appreciation, admiration, they
may think they are superior.
 Self-monitoring -> one’s ability to adjust himself and his behavior to external
world, various environmental circumstances. People with high level of self-
monitoring are more responsive to external signs, but also their behavior differs
from situation to situation – they tend to behave differently when being in a public
and differently in private. High self-monitoring means better job performance than
low self-monitoring.
 Risk taking -> willingness to accept changes and take risks. Managers with high
risk-taking level make decisions faster.
 Type A personality -> people who are highly competitive, always want to
achieve more, be more efficient, they can be aggressive in pursuing their goals,
even if it takes being against other people/difficulties. In US type A is associated
positively, with ambition, success. Type B personality is the opposite – people with
type B never hurry with anything, can be relaxed without guilt. Type A
personalities do better during work interviews, are faster workers, work long
hours, usually work under stress and their actions are more predictable.
 Proactive personality -> taking initiatives, being ahead with ideas, recognition
of opportunities. Proactive people are seen as leaders, make changes within the
organization, but they are more likely to leave the organization to start business
on their-own.

Nature of values

A personal and cultural value is a relative ethic value, an assumption upon which
implementation seems reasonable. Moreover, values that we organise according to their
importance and intensity create a value system. In OB, studying values is important
because they influence behavior, perception, attitudes. They guide one’s behavior in the
sense of doing right and wrong.

The most basic categorisation of values recognises terminal and instrumental values and
is used in Rokech Value Survey (RVS). RVS is made of two sets of values: terminal
values are desirable goals and instrumental values that represent behaviors/modes
which help to achieve the terminal values (terminal goals). People in the similar
occupations have similar RVS values.
Moreover, it is necessary to mention generational values. Researches have made the
following division:

 Veterans -> begin of the workforce in 1950s and 1960s; rather loyal, belief in
authority, order, hardworking, pragmatic, traditionalists.
 Boomers -> born after the WWII; workforce from mid-1960s until mid-1980s;
career-oriented, making-money attitude, distrust/dislike of authority.
 Xers -> entered workforce from 1985 until 2000; people with team-sprit at work,
who value relationships, bonds, balance their work with private life, question
authority, do not like rules.
 Nexters -> on the work market since 2000; people to whom financial success is
important, they are technology-oriented at work, confident, value both self and
relationships, team spirit combined with work autonomy.

Disadvantages of the division above: does not apply in all cultures, little research –
relying on intuition, inexact categories.

Matching individual’s values and personality to the workplace

Two main theories:

1. Person-job fit
2. Person-organisation fit

Ad1. Person-job fit -> recognises 6 personality types and makes a match between
particular personality fit and occupation and its environment. A successful match
guarantees high job satisfaction and lower probability to resign from the job. The possible
personality types in person-job fit theory are: realistic, investigative, artistic, social,
conventional, enterprising. Social people match best with social occupations, artistic
people with artistic jobs, etc…

Ad 2. Person-organisation fit -> this theory claims that people are attracted to and
chosen by organisations that correspond to their values and beliefs. If it is not the case, a
person will leave the organization. A fit between one’s values and corporate culture and
values guarantees job satisfaction, organizational commitment and low probability of
leaving the firm.

Global Consequences

Hofstede’s Framework

Values and value systems differ from culture to culture. Hofstede’s framework explains
and forecasts behaviors of people from different cultures. The five dimensions of
Hofstede’s theory are:

1. Power distance -> high level of it means large differences between the rich and
the poor, accepts the existence of social classes, castes. Low level of it
emphasizes equality in society.
 2. Individualism versus collectivism
3. Masculinity versus femininity: high masculinity rating  men dominate the society
in which the roles for men and women are separated. Femininity 
4. Uncertainty avoidance
5. Long-term versus short-term orientation

Critique: out-of-date (concept developed 30 years ago, based on IBM company), many
changes, world events have happened since the development of the theory (and they
also shape the dimensions), some results are surprising.

GLOBE Framework

The acronym stands for The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Effectiveness. It is an on-going study in leadership and national culture across different
countries representing different cultures. Some dimensions are the same as Hofstede’s,
but apart from them, GLOBE has much more other aspects: humane orientation,
performance orientation.