Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
LECTURE 1
LECTURE 2
What is personality?
Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with
others, measurable traits a person exhibits
Personality traits
o Enduring (stable) characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour
o E.g. shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, loyal etc.
Personality determinants
o Hereditary: factors determined at conception (biological, physiological and
inherent psychological make-up)
o Environment: where you grow up, upbringing etc.
o Situation: circumstances, events, etc.
A personality test that taps into four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16
personality types
Personality types:
o Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
o Sensing vs. Intuitive (S or N)
o Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F)
A myers-Briggs Score
o Can be valuable for self-awareness and career guidance
o BUT should not be used as a selection tool because it has not been related to
job performance
Extroversion (E)
o Sociable, gregariousness and assertive
o FACETS: Gregariousness, Assertiveness
Agreeableness (A)
o Good-natures, cooperative and trusting
o FACETS: Altruism, Cooperation
Conscientiousness (C)
o Responsible, dependable, persistent and organised
o FACETS: Achievement striving, catiousness
Emotional stability (N)
o Calm, self-confident, secure under stress (positive), versus nervous,
depressed, and insecure under stress (negative)
o FACETS: anxiety, anger
Openness to Experience (O)
o Curious, imaginative, artistic and sensitive
o FACETS: imagination, intellect
Work Applications
Conscientiousness
o The best single predictor of job performance across ALL jobs
o Builds work motivation (set goals, direct effort, more persistent)
Agreeableness
o Predicts performance in jobs with a large customer service component, or
when teamwork and collaboration are critical (e.g. interpersonal interaction).
Emotional Stability
o Predicts performance across a wide range of jobs
o But some anxiety can be useful for performance
Openness
o Success in training
o Related to creativity and to influence the ability to change
Extraversion
o Predicts performance in jobs with a large social component or where status
driving behaviour is important (e.g. sales, management)
o Success in training
Criticisms
Dimensions separate?
Have we got the right number of factors?
Do kids have 2 additional factors? irritability & activity
Methodology “A psychology of the stranger’
Descriptive not explanatory
Cross-Cultural
Values
Values are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or
courses of action in a variety of situations
Values define right or wrong, good or bad
Espoused vs. enacted
Schwartz’s Values model
Values in organisations
LECTURE 3
LECTURE 4
Organisational structure
Work Specialisation
Downsides:
Departmentalisation
Chain of Command
Authority
o Right inherent in a managerial position to give orders and expect orders to be
obeyed
Chain of command
o Clarifies who reports to whom
Unity of command
o Only one superior or supervisor
Span of Control
Centralisation
o Decision making is concentrated at a single point in the organisation
Decentralisation
o Decision making is spread throughout the organisation
Formalisation
Types of structures
Simple structures
o Lack the standardisation that is the defining characteristic of bureaucracies
o Used successfully only in small and simple organisations
Bureaucratic structures
o Arise as standardisation emerges as the primary means of coordination
o Types of bureaucratic structures
Functional
Divisional
matrix
Strategy
o Innovation, cost-minimisation, imitation strategy
Organisational size
o As size increases become more mechanistic, more specialised, standardised
Technology
o Routine vs custom
Environment
o Capacity, volatility and complexity
Skill variety
o Variety of different activities
Task identity
o Completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work
Task significance
o Substantial impact on the lives or work of other people
Autonomy
o Freedom and discretion in scheduling the work and in determining the
procedures to be used in carrying it out
Feedback
o Carrying out the work activities results in obtaining direct and clear
information about performance
Is more of each job characteristic always better? Not always, it depends on individual, team
and organisational contingencies
Social Characteristics
Other characteristics
Knowledge characteristics
o Information processing
o Problem solving
o Job complexity
Work context
o Work conditions
o Physical demands
o Ergonomics
Job rotation
Flextime
o Common core time period but have discretion in total workday from flexible
set of hours outside the core
Job sharing
o Two or more people split 40 hours
Telecommuting
o Work at home on a computer linked to office
Employee Involvement
LECTURE 5
Problem-solving
major phases
o Divergent
o Convergent
People differ in style but both important
Recommend
o Ordered cyclical movement between phases
o All team members recognise the phase
Fishbone diagram
Goal
o creates a structure for ideas to explore problem space thoroughly
What is it?
o Categorise problems into groups of reasons and identify their order of
importance
When to use it
o Compare relative importance of causes
Brainstorming
How-How Diagram
1. Write the primary outcome or decision on the left side; format as a question
2. Construct diagram by asking ‘how can this primary outcome be achieved?’
- Write on lines
- Keep lines far apart so you can expand your thoughts
3. Drill down into the action plan by continually asking ‘how?’
- Stop when actions are at a level that can be readily assigned to one person
or team
- Stop before plans become so specific that they are inflexible to planned
eventualities
Evaluate
Employee perceptions
o Feedback/reviews ‘in the moment’
o Qualitative research methods e.g. interviews
o Quantitative research methods e.g. surveys
Organisational outcomes
o Profit
o Customer ratings
o Employee absence and turnover (retention)
o Employee satisfaction and engagement
Experiment
o Key feature = random assignment
Quasi-experiment
o Typically focused on the impact of intervention
o Key feature = lack the element of random assignment
o Strength = external validity
o Problem = internal validity
o Types
Within participants
Match participants
LECTURE 6
Implications:
o Set goals and integrate with action plans (‘team agreement’)
Organisational Development
Training
o Task analysis
o Person analysis
Types
o On the job
o Off the job
Transfer of training to job can be problematic
Common methods (CIPD, 2007)
Focused singularly
Longer term and incremental
Supports development
Growth in the market
Changes from informal to formal or vice versa over time
Coaching
o Process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge and opportunities
they need to develop themselves and become more effective (Peterson and
Hicks, 1995)
o Purposes:
Setting: life skills, business and executive
Correct deficiencies vs facilitating learning and optimising
performance
Mentoring
o Senior, more experienced employee who helps a younger, less experienced
employee become proficient in their organisational role (Kram, 1985)
o Two major purposes
Career quidance
Psycho-social support
Often used to facilitate socialisation
o Information vs formal mentoring
Feedback interventions
LECTURE 7
What is motivation?
Expectancy theory
SMART goals
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Related
Time-framed
Smart goals need good specific actions
o It is the step by step process to reach these that is equally important
o Small wins along the way
o So something towards it every time
o Trial new things
A participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees and is designed to
encourage increased commitment to the organisation’s success
For example:
o Representative participation
o Works councils
o Board representative
o Quality circle
Pay
Personality
The work content/process
1. What to pay
2. How to pay
3. What benefits to offer
4. How to recognise employees
LECTURE 8
Introduction
The study of leadership has been an important part of social science for well over a
century
Definition of Leadership
Riggio
o Defines leadership as “the ability to direct a group towards the attainment of
goals”
Researchers have drawn a distinction between leaders and managers
o Manager – person who has formally designated authority
o Leader – an individual who displays the ability to direct a group towards the
attainment of goals – it is not always formally appointed
Manager’s versus Leaders
Leadership Theory
o Decision-making model
o Leader-member exchange model
Neo-charismatic theories
o Charismatic leadership theory
o Transformational leadership theory
Universality theories
This theory argues that leaders with characteristics displayed by effective leaders will
be effective in all situations
Characteristics includes height, personality and intelligence
This group of theories represent the earliest and simplest approach
The adage “great leaders are born and not made” is the basis of this approach
This is not a theory but rather a belief that the personal qualities and abilities of
some individuals make them “natural leaders”
People that espouse this view suggest that if certain great persons were alive today,
they would rise to positions of power because of their natural abilities
There is little concrete evidence to support such a view
Trait theory
It’s not likely that a single leadership trait (e.g. assertiveness) will be
associated with effectiveness in all situations, for all people or all tasks
Behavioural theories
In the 1940s and 1950s, researchers began to explore actual behaviour of leaders
because of disappointing results of trait approaches
Two major behavioural research programs very similar conclusions
Observed the behaviour of leaders and followers and identified hundreds of leader
behaviours
Through factor analysis they identified two general categories of behaviours
o Initiating structure: includes activities to define and organise work
E.g. assigning specific tasks, defining individual and group roles,
making task-related decisions
o Consideration: show a genuine concern for followers, developing rapport
with followers and displaying respect for followers
E.g. asking followers for their input into decisions, taking followers’
needs into account when making decisions
The two dimensions are independent – that is, a leader can be high in consideration
but low in initiating structure or vice versa
Initiating structure has been found to be positively associated with performance but
reduces satisfactory and increases turnover
Consideration has been found to be associated with job satisfaction but is unrelated
or in some cases, negatively related to performance
Recent research: Judge, Piccolo and Ilies (2004)
o Conducted a meta-analysis and found that consideration was strongly
positively related to satisfaction with the leader, job satisfaction, motivation
and leader effectiveness
o Initiating structure was more strongly associated with ratings of a leader’s job
performance, and group and organisational performance
o The measure used to assess these behaviours was found to have strong
influence on the results obtained
Both initiating structure and consideration have been linked to different indicators of
effectiveness
Need to consider the role of the situation
Contingency theories
Path-goal theory
This theory suggests that a leader’s role is to help work group’s attain their goals
The leader helps the group overcome various barriers they may encounter
In the original formulation of the theory (House, 1971, 1971), the leader was said to
have to adopt one of four types of behaviour
o Directive – providing instruction and suggestions for getting the job done
o Achievement oriented – focus on particular work outcomes and involves
setting challenging goals and encouraging and measuring improvements in
performance
o Supporting – focuses on interpersonal relationships among group members
E.g. showing concern for members’ welfare
o Participative – encourage group members to take an active role in decision
making
The choice of leader behaviour is contingent of the type of work task and
characteristics of followers
Situational characteristics
o Work group characteristics
o Task structure
o Formal authority system
Worker characteristics
o Locus of control
o Perceived ability
o Experience
Application:
Evaluation:
o Criticised because of its very general approach – but could also benefit
o Hasn’t led to specific leadership training or interventions
o Model has recently been expanded (House, 1996) and now incorporates
more leadership behaviours and situational variables
Have been the dominant group of leadership theories in the last 25 years
Models are concerned with “transformational” and “charismatic” leadership (Bass,
1985; Conger & Kanungo, 1988)
Overall, these theories suggest that effective leadership involves motivating
followers to achieve high levels of performance through changing followers’
attitudes, beliefs and values as opposed to simply gaining compliance
o Stage 3 – leader builds trust in goals and demonstrates how goals can be
achieved. Charismatic leaders transform their concern for followers’ needs
into a total dedication and commitment to the common cause they share
with followers
Charismatic and transformational leadership often discussed as if they are the same
– they are not
Theoretical ambiguity around the definition of the transformational behaviours
(Yukl, 1999)
Some recent research has begun to address the theoretical ambiguity of the
transformational behaviours (Rafferty & Griffin, 2004; 2006)
Insufficient attention paid to the role of the situation in influencing the impact of
transformational leadership on followers
Destructive Leadership
Selection
o Review specific requirement for the job
o Use tests that identify personal traits associated with leadership, measure
self-monitoring, and assess emotional intelligence
o Conduct personal interviews to determine candidate’s fit with the job
Training
o Recognise that all people are not equally trainable
o Teach skills that are necessary for employees to become effective leaders
o Provide behavioural training to increase the development of employees
Summary
LECTURE 9
Values/assumptions/beliefs vs behaviours
Why vs what
Qualitative vs quantitative
Climate Measures
Specific measures
o Service
o Innovation “new ideas are readily accepted here”
o Safety
Global measures
o Motivating, involving, supporting “this company cares about it’s employees”
Pros and cons
o Measuring subcultures
o Comparing across studies and organisations
Employee climate:
o Innovation and risk taking
o Attention to detail
o Outcome orientation
o People orientation
o Team orientation
o Aggressive achievement
o Stability
Internal – external
Control – flexibility
Means – ends
Advantages
o Summarises latest thinking
What is the current approach to thinking
Why these issues are important
o Peer review increases rigor
Systematic & cumulative knowledge
More than 1 personʼs perspective
Disadvantages ??
Culture as a liability
Organisational Ambidexterity
Key concepts:
o Core Values
o Dominant Culture
o Subcultures
o Strong Culture
o Culture versus Formalisation
o Organisational Culture versus National Culture
“When an organisation takes on a life of its own, apart from any of its members,
becomes valued for itself, and acquires immortality”
3. Create a new vision to direct the change and strategies for achieving the vision.
4. Communicate the vision throughout the organisation.
5. Empower others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change and
encouraging risk-taking and creative problem-solving.
6. Plan for, create and reward shorter ‘wins’ that move the organisation towards the
new vision.
7. Consolidate improvements, reassess changes and make necessary adjustments in
the new programs.
8. Reinforce the changes by demonstrating the relationship between new behaviours
and organisational success.
Unfreeze
Change
Refreeze
Stress
Organisation
o Selection & placement
o Training
o Goal setting
o Work redesign: autonomy, flexibility, sabbaticals
o Organisational communication
o Wellness programs (meditation)
o (+ reactive OHS)
Individual
o Selection of job (levels of stress, control & pay)
o Social networks
o Exercise (non-competitive)
o Time management
o http://www.isma.org.uk/about-stress/questionnaires-and-downloads.html
o (+ reactive: doctors)
Summary
LECTURE 10
Applications of emotions in OB
What is emotion?
Cognitive
physiological
behavioural
Personality
Day and Time of the Week
NOT WEATHER
Stress
Social activities
Sleep
Exercise
Age
Gender
Organisational influences
Cultural influences
Deliberate behaviors and thought patterns (e.g., meditation)
Fisk, & Steiner, 2005; Grandey, Fisk, Matilla, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005;
Totterdell & Holman, 2003)
Deep acting and positive outcomes
o personal authenticity, personal accomplishment, lower likelihood of revealing
negative emotions, and enhanced, job satisfaction and performance
(Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Brotheridge & Lee, 2002; Grandey, 2000;
Grandey, 2003; Grandey, Fisk, Matilla, et al., 2005; Totterdell & Holman,
2003)
“The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among them,
and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer,
1990, p.189).
Models of EI
Summary
Emotions are important at all levels in the organisation; positive emotions are
particularly important
Emotional labour applied to all jobs, & has implications for employees (health, pay)
& the organisation (customer service, power dynamics)
Emotions have a short & longer term impact on job satisfaction & performance
LECTURE 11
2. Ensure diversity
4. Monitor progress
Problems with communication are often cited but what does that mean?
Communication must be tailored for the audience and account for attention ‘space’
Communication
Words are only 7% of meaning, 55 % comes from body language and 38% from tone.
Uncertainty
Complexity
Individual attributes
Past experiences
o Social norms
o availability
serial position effect: primary, recency (application: law, conferences)
Halo
application: surveys, interviews, personality, marketing, high
performance organisations
example: team processes and performance
projection: attributing one's own characteristics to other people, seen in
people with authority
cognitive frameworks
categorise to impose meaning
pre-existing assumptions
short-cut to predict
Attribution errors
Self-serving bias
o Attributing our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors
o Seek information that will support our existing instinct or point of view
Preventing groupthink
5. Input from people external to the team, within & between meetings
Examples:
Reframing
Framing the question or the problem – 1st step in decision making. The frame will
determine the actions and perception of success
Example:
Team design
o diversity
Team process:
o cognitive conflict
Performance Expectations
Ethnic Profiling
Performance Evaluations
Organisational surveys
1.Descriptive information
2.Linkage analysis