Personality and Organizational Behaviour

Personality can be defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual interacts with people and reacts to situations.

The term personality has been derived from Latin word ‘persona’ which means ‘to speak through’. This Latin term denotes the masks which actors used to wear in ancient Greece and Rome.

1. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75
Affiliated to Institution of G.G.S.IP.U, Delhi
ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR (OB)
BBA201
PERSONALITY
PINKI BHARDWAJ,ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

PERSONALITY
Personality can be defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual
interacts with people and reacts to situations.

The term personality has been derived from Latin word ‘persona’ which means
‘to speak through’. This Latin term denotes the masks which actors used to
wear in ancient Greece and Rome.

According to Ruch, personality should include:
i)External appearance and behaviour or social stimulus value;
ii)Inner awareness of self as a permanent organising force; and
iii)The particular pattern or organisation of measurable traits, both inner and
outer.

3. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
INDIVIDUAL
PERSONALITY
BIOLOGICAL
FACTORS
SITUATIONAL
FACTORS
CULTURAL
FACTORS
FAMILY &
GROUP
FACTORS

4. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
Biological Factors
The general characteristics of human biological system influence the way in which
human being tends to sense external event data, interpret, and respond to them. It
can be divided into three major categories:

Heredity
Brain
Physical features

Family and Group factors
The development of the individual proceeds under the influence of many
socializing forces, from nuclear family to more distant or global groupings. These
groups impact through :

 Socialization process
 Identification process

5. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY

Cultural factors
Culture is the underlying determinant of human decision making. It
generally determines attitudes towards independence, aggression,
competition and cooperation. Each culture expects and trains its members
to behave in the ways that are acceptable to the group.

Situational Factors
According to Mailgram's research situation exerts an important pressure on
the individual. It exercises constraints or provide push. In certain
circumstances, it is not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of
situation in which he is placed, that determines his actions.

6. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

PERSONALITY TRAITS
Personality can also be defined as the traits exhibited by a person during these
interactions. These personality traits are very significant to the study of
organisatinal behaviour.
Psychologists have tried to identify types of personality and personality traits.
These efforts have resulted into identification of thousands of personality traits and
dimensions that differentiate one person from another. From organisational
behaviour point of view, following classification of personality trait is relevant:


Personality
Traits
Big 5
Personality
Traits
Other
Personality
Traits

7. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS
Researchers have identified five fundamental traits that are specially relevant to
organisations, they are called big five personality traits. These five traits are as follows:

Agreeableness
Agreeableness refers to a person’s ability to get along with others. Highly agreeable
people are better in developing good working relationships with coworkers,
subordinates, superiors, whereas less agreeable persons are not likely to have good
working relationships.
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness refers to the number of goals on which a person focuses his attention.
People with high conscientiousness focus on relatively few goals at a time and are likely
to be organised, systematic, careful, thorough and disciplined whereas persons with less
conscientiousness tend to pursue a wider array of goals and, as a result, to be more
disorganised, careless, and even irresponsible as well as less thorough and self
disciplined.

8. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS
Negative Emotionality
Emotion means moving of the feelings or agitation of mind. Persons with less negative
emotionality are relatively poised, calm, resilient and secure,;they tend to better handle
job stress, pressure and tensions. Persons with more negative emotionality are more
excitable, insecure, reactive and subject to extreme mood swings.
Extroversion
This refers to the extent to which a person s comfortable with other people. People who
have high degree of extroversion are social, talkative and friendly. They are extroverts
and tend to develop new relationships easily. People who are low in extroversion are
introverts. They are reluctant to interact with other people and avoid developing new
relationships.
Openness
Openness refers to person’s rigidity of beliefs and range of interests. Persons with high
level of openness are willing to listen to new ideas and to change their own ideas,
beliefs and attitudes to new information. On the other hand, persons with low level of
openness tend to be less receptive to new ideas and less willing to change their minds.

9. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS
There are certain other personality traits which are relevant for organisations.
Self-concept and Self-esteem
Self concept is the way individuals define themselves as to who they are derive their
sense of identity. Self-esteem denotes the extent to which they consistently regard
themselves as capable, successful, important and worthy individuals.
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism refers to manipulation of others as a primary way of achieving one’s
goals. People with high score on mach scale, tend to be cool, logical in assessing the
system around them, willing to twist and turn facts to influence others, and try to gain
control of people, events and situations by manipulating system to their advantage.
Locus of control
Locus of control means whether people believe that they are in control of events, or
events control them. Those who have internal locus of control believe that they control
and shape the course of events in their lives; those ho have external locus of control tend
to believe that events occur purely by chance or because of factors beyond their own
control.

10. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS
Tolerance for Ambiguity
Some people can tolerate high level of ambiguity without experiencing undue stress and
still function effectively while people who have a low tolerance for ambiguity may be
effective in structured work setting but it is almost impossible to operate effectively
when things are rapidly changing and much information about the future turn of events
is not available.
Type A and B
Personality has been grouped into two categories denoted by alphabets A and B. Type A
people always feel a sense of time urgency, are highly achievement –oriented, exhibit a
competitive drive and are impatient when their wrk is slowed down for any reason. On
the other hand, type B people are easygoing, do not have urgency for time, and do not
experience the competitive drive.
Work –ethic Orientation
People may have different work-ethic orientation. The extremely work-ethic oriented
people get greatly involved in the job. On the other hand, people with low work ethic
orientation try to do minimum that is necessary to get without being fired on the job.

11. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS
Risk Propensity
Risk propensity is the degree to which a person is willing to take chances and make risky
decisions. He may introduce new ideas, gamble on new products, and lead the
organisation in new and different directions. A person with high risk propensity
experiments with new ideas. On the other hand, a person with low risk propensity
believes in excessive conservatism and tries to maintain status quo.

Apart from big five personality traits, effective managers need to have high level of self-
concept and self-esteem, internal locus of control, high tolerance for ambiguity,
orientation to A type, high work-ethic orientation and moderate risk propensity.

12. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT
Some of the major methods to measure the personality are as follows:
•Projective method: A projective method of personality measurement consists of
different procedures that claim to disclose the basic personality structure and
motivation of a subject by having him organise, respond to, or deal with materials
or stimuli in a free, unlimited way without reference to a preconceived system of
correct or incorrect answers.
•Personality inventories: Personality inventories take both external and internal
features of the individuals. While external features can be measured by
observations, for measuring internal features, various questionnaires and other
techniques are used.
•Interview method: Interview is a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to
evaluate the personality characteristics of persons. There are two types of
interviews for measuring personality-exhaustive and stress. Exhaustive interview is
a semi- structured and involves questions on various dimensions of personality.
Stress interview aims at how finding out how the individual behaves in a stressful
situations.

13. TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Sector – 9, Dwarka Institutional Area, New Delhi-75

PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT
•Case history method: in the case history method, the personality appraises the
personality characteristics of an individual based on the information collected from
different sources. The information so collected is analysed and the personality of
the individual is assessed.

•Observation method: in the observation method of personality assessment,
personality characteristics of an individual are assessed by observing his behaviour
in different situations. The basic idea behind this method is that the behavioural
pattern of any person reflects his personality and the assessment of this overt
behaviour pattern will provide clue about his personality.