WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

• Organizational culture is the set of values, beliefs, attitudes, systems, and rules that
outline and influence employee behavior within an organization. The culture reflects how
employees, customers, vendors, and stakeholders experience the organization and its
brand.
• Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by
a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations and behaviors in
various situations. The word "personality" originates from the Latin persona, which
means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask
was not used as a plot device to disguise the identity of a character, but rather was a
convention employed to represent or typify that character.
• The pioneering American psychologist, Gordon Allport (1937) described two major
ways to study personality, the nomothetic and the idiographic. Nomothetic psychology
seeks general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle of
self-actualization, or the trait of extraversion. Idiographic psychology is an attempt to
understand the unique aspects of a particular individual.
• The study of personality has a rich and varied history in psychology, with an abundance
of theoretical traditions. The major theories include dispositional (trait) perspective,
psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behaviorist and social learning perspective. There
is no consensus on the definition of "personality" in psychology. Most researchers and
psychologists do not explicitly identify themselves with a certain perspective and often
take an eclectic approach. Some research is empirically driven such as the "Big 5"
personality model whereas other research emphasizes theory development such as
psychodynamics. There is also a substantial emphasis on the applied field of personality
testing.
• Those personality traits which affect the organizational behaviour of a person are :

• 1. Authoritarianism : It was developed by the psychologist Adorno to measure susceptibility to

autocratic, fascistic, or anti-democratic appeals. It was later extended to human personality.
Authoritarians are oriented towards conformity of rules and regulation. They prefer stable and
structured work environment. They believe obedience and respect for authority and blind
acceptance of authority. They are conservatives. They are concerned with toughness and
power, close minded and less educated. They make good followers, work better under directive
supervision and are more productive within authoritarian organizational structure.
• 2. Bureaucratic Personality : It is based upon respect for organizational rules and
regulations. Unlike authoritarian person, bureaucratic person's acceptance of authority is
not total and blind. A bureaucratic person values subordination, conformity to rules,
impersonal and formal relationships. These people are not innovative. They do not like
taking risks. They are better supervisors when the type of work is routine, repetitive and
proceduralized.
• 3. Machiavellianism (Mach) : Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in the 16th century on how to gain and
use power. This personality trait named after Machiavelli are :

• (i) A Mach man is pragmatic, maintain emotional distance and believes that ends can justify
means.

• (ii) High Mach people flourish when they interact face to face with others.

• (iii) They have high self-confidence and high self esteem.

• (iv) They are specially successful in exploiting structured situations and vulnerable people. We
cannot conclude whether high Machs make good employees or not. The answer will depend
upon the type of the job and whether moral and ethical values are considered in evaluating the
performance of a person.
• 4. Introversion and Extroversion : These two terms are associated with the
interpersonal behaviour of an individual and his sociability. Extroverts are gregarious and
sociable individuals while introverts are shy, quiet and retiring. Extroverts are more
suitable for positions that require considerable interaction with others. Managerial
positions are dominated by extroverts. An introvert works best alone in a quiet office
without external interruption or influence.
• 5. Problem-solving Style : There are the following four problem solving styles :

• (i) Sensational Feeling Style : These people are dependable, friendly, social and
they approach facts with human concerns. These people are pragmatic and
methodical. Some suitable areas of jobs for these people are teaching, customer
relations, social workers and marketing.

• (ii) Sensation Thinking Style : They are practical, logical, decisive and sensitive to
details. These people prefer bureaucratic type organizations. They are not highly
suitable for jobs requiring interpersonal relations. But these people are more
skilled in technical jobs, e.g., production, accounting, engineering and computers.
• (iii) Intuition Feeling Style : They are enthusiastic, people oriented, charismatic and
helpful. The professions which are suited to this style are pubic relations, advertising,
politics and personal.

• (iv) Intuition Thinking Style : These people are very creative, energetic, ingenious and like
jobs which are challenging in terms of design and analysis such as system design, law,
research and development, top management and so on.
• 6. Achievement Orientation : The people with very high achievement orientation strive
to do things in a better way. They feel that their success or failure is due to their actions.
These people do not like to perform easy tasks or tasks where the failure rate is more.
These people like to the acts with moderate difficulties. The high achievers will do better
in sports, management and sales.
• 7. Locus of Control : It refers to an individual's belief that events are either with one's
control (internal locus of control) or are determined by forces beyond one's control. Some
people believe that they are the masters of their own fate. They are labelled as internals.
Other people see themselves as pawns of fate. This type is called externals. A person's
perception of the source of his or her fate is termed locus of control.
• Personality Traits Theories
• • Big five personality traits.
• • Holland's Typology of Personality and Congruent Occupations.
• • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
• Characteristics of Internal Locus of Control
• (i) Internals have more control over their own behaviour. They believe that they are the
master of their own destiny.
• (ii) Internals are more active in seeking more information to make decisions.
• (iii) Internals prefer skill achievements outcomes.
• (iv) These people are less likely to use coercion.
• (v) They are more independent.
• (vi) They prefer participative management.
• (vii) They hold jobs of higher status and advance more rapidly in their careers.
• (viii) They have better health habits. Their incidents of sickness and absenteeism are
lower. (ix) Internals prefer intrinsic rewards.
• Characteristics of External Locus of Control
• (i) They are less satisfied with their jobs. They have higher absenteeism rates.
• (ii) The prefer directive management.
• (iii) He is at mercy of destiny, chance or other people.
• (iv) He believes that everything will happen by the will of God.
• (v) He feels that outside forces are affecting the events in his life.
• (vi) He is more interested in job security and not in advancement of careers.
• (vii) Externals prefer extrinsic awards.
• 8. Self Esteem : It refers to the feeling of like or dislike for oneself. It is the degree of respect a person has for himself. A few of
the research findings about self-esteem are :
• (i) Self-esteems is directly related to the expectations for success.
• (ii) People with high esteem will choose unconventional job and take more risks in job selections. People with low esteem will
choose conventional jobs.
• (iii) People with low self esteem are more susceptible to external influence than those of high self esteem.
• (iv) People with low esteem tend to be concerned with pleasing others.
• (v) High esteems are more satisfied with their job than the low esteems.
• (iv) High esteem people are very friendly and affectionate. Low esteem people are depressed
• and blame others for their own failures. (vii) High esteem people are high performers while low esteem people are poor
performers.
• 9. Self Monitoring : It is a personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his behaviour to external
situational factors. The following are the features :
• (i) Individuals with high self monitoring adjust with external situational factors.
• (ii) High self monitors can behave differently in different situations. Low self monitors cannot deviate their
behaviour.
• (iii) The high self monitors tend to pay closer attention to the behaviour of others.
• (iv) High self monitors will be more successful in managerial positions.
• 10. Risk Taking : An impulsive person is a high risk taking manager. He will make rapid decision. A very
conscious and low risk taking manger will be slow in taking decision. The job of a broker in a brokerage firm
demands high risk taking person. The job of an accountant may be filled up with low risk taking trait.
• 11. "Type A" and "Type B" Personality : People who are impatient, aggressive and
highly competitive are termed as 'Type A' personality. But those who are easy going and
noncompetitive are termed as 'Type B' personality. Type A people tend to be very
productive as they work very hard. Type A people are very impatient, more irritable and
have poor judgement. Type B people do better on complex tasks involving judgement and
accuracy. Great sales persons are usually Type A's while senior executives are generally
Type B.