A report on PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN RELATION TO ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR

The subjects of organization behavior, which include personality and individual characteristics, have been specifically covered in this paper. Organizational behavior studies people's actions, their interactions with one another, and their responses to various situations. In order to provide readers or managers with ideas on how they should successfully handle organizational dynamics, personality and individual characteristics have been covered in detail. Personality traits and cultural variations have a big impact on organizational behavior. These two factors influence how people create groups, carry out roles, and behave in particular ways. By cultivating good qualities that come from personality and demonstrate leadership, managers may acknowledge their impact that emanate from personality and individual differences.

Moreover, this paper has covered personality and individual differences theories. These principles mainly explain the effects of personality and individual differences in organization performance, employee motivation and organization behavior. Some of the theories are classified into type theories, psychological, behavioral, humanistic and social cognitive theories. The Five Factor Model is used to expound on the impact of personality traits on the execution of roles. These five factors personality models include: openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Additionally, personality and individual differences are related to both organization behavior and employee motivation. Through this report, it is apparent that employee motivation is crucial in an organization. Management should thus base on personality and individual differences to develop employee motivation program that will influence workers to work extremely harder as discussed in the report.



Personality and Individual Differences in Relation to Organization Behavior

Today, managers experience more challenges than opportunities in ensuring businesses competes favorably and attains their strategic objectives shortly. Besides the turbulent external business environment, the internal organization set up has a significant effect on the performance of the firm. Internally, the management is imperatively expected to embrace best administrative practices that are fundamental to ensuring best individual behavior is encouraged. Currently, managers study organization behavior to get an understanding of human interactions and behavior in the organization. Organization behavior examines how employees react to various situations, how they conduct themselves, their interactions with each other, group formation and others (Oliver, Robins and Pervin 2010).

Undoubtedly, every organization has a distinctive culture that dictates the way activities are managed and executed. In most cases, organization behavior enhances the establishment of a unique culture that creates competitive advantages for the company. Some of the most important subjects learned through the understanding of organization behavior include group formation, employee motivation, personality, and individual differences, etc. (Antonakis, Day and Schyns 2012, p. 645). The study of organization behavior is useful to managers in understanding how management can effectively manage to limit the occurrence of conflicts and enhance formation of teamwork. Moreover, managers can apply organization behavior knowledge to effectively coordinate the employees for the benefit of the organization and further reward them for the commitment to organization programs.

This report will focus on personality and individual differences. It specifically examines how personality and individual differences interfaces with employee motivation at work. Today, most organizations have adopted multicultural workforce where individuals display various ability that entirely varies from one person to the other. Hence, maximization of individual’s capabilities requires the understanding of the personality and individual differences which probably influences organization behavior. Also, the report will explore the impacts of personality and individual differences on workers motivation and their impact on organization behavior. Therefore, the review of the report will provide an understanding of how managers can effectively manage different workers in the organization.

Personality and Individual Differences

Both personality and individual differences equally influence organization behavior. They are crucial in defining group formation and other interactions among the employees of an organization. Personality is described as the unique patterns of human behavior, feelings, and emotions that are expressed by individuals regarding various organization issues (Antonakis, Day and Schyns 2012, p. 648). However, personality varies from one person to the other. For example, one’s feelings concerning different matters in the organization may differ depending on the effect of the activity. What is good for one might be bad for the other. Also, the aspect of the uniqueness of the human being justifies why there exist personality differences among the employees. However, personality trends are underpinned in institutions that are highly structured and only give room to individuals to exercise roles vested in the position or as assigned by the manager (Sawyer et al. 2009, p. 310). Some individuals usually expose their unique characters irrespective of the surrounding situation. Such personality is generic which seems very hard to suppress undesired traits. Managers are expected to identify such people and apply the knowledge of organization behavior to keep them on track and capitalize their efforts on organization activities.

The existence of differences in individual's characters, behaviors, groupings, and others should be positively treated by the management and use the best characters to undertake organization activities. The hiring of individuals based on job requirements and academic qualifications has increased the level at which people from different backgrounds interact in the organization. The differences might be as a result of the culture, language, abilities, etc. Managers will thus apply the organization behavior knowledge in identifying individuals skills based on the differences. As a result, roles will accurately be assigned based on individuals capabilities, and others will be rewarded for their good work, appropriate resources can be availed to workers, etc. The understanding of personality and individual differences in the business enhances the creation of a favorable working environment that enhances optimum utilization of organization resources. Managers can apply from this topic to identify factors that motivates individuals in the organization to work hard. For instance, employees should use the lessons learned to distinguish workers that are driven by money from those who are motivated by recognition.

Theories and Models

This section will particularly cover scholarly expositions on personality and individual differences. Theories and models apparently explain the effects of personality and individuals differences on performance, employee motivation, and organization behavior as follows:

Theories

Theories are models of reality that helps one to understand, predict, explain and influence that reality. In relation to personality, most of the theories are verbal. In simple terms, theories are a guide of individual’s actions (Sawyer et al. 2009, p. 304). For instance, people base on the past events in predicting the future. Similarly, the same knowledge is used to figure out the behavior of individual’s in the organization. Through these theories, one can use the patterns of events to forecast the future behavior of individuals. This gives the opportunity for correction of the prediction in case they are inaccurate, although the managers can base on the prediction to formulate rules that can be adhered to by the employees. In addition, personality theories help the administration to cultivate constructive organization dynamics and equally constrain behaviors that hinder outstanding organization performance (Barbara 2008, p. 58).

Personality theories are broadly classified into type theories, psychological, behavioral, humanistic and social cognitive theories. First, Type theory of personality is fundamental in judging the character of individuals and individual difference. Through Type theory, Meyer Friedman used Type “A” and “B” personalities to examine behavior patterns among the co-workers. In the analysis, type “A” personality theory was intense and hard driving, whereas type “B” was very relaxed and less competitive. This theory, therefore, is instrumental in the management in ascertaining individual differences among the employees which are useful in decision making. Second, psychological theories explain individual’s behavior and the way they react to particular situations. Understanding of the psychological personality theory helps the managers in identifying the apt time to introduce changes in the organization (Barbara 2008, p. 60). Managers should base on the expected reactions from the employees and formulate measures that can guide employees during change period. An example of psychological theories includes the feud theory.

Additionally, the behavioral theory describes personality regarding the external influences or stimuli on individual behavior. This aspect stresses the importance of extrinsic motivation on improving employee’s commitment in driving the company towards success. Unlike the psychological theory of feud that advocates experimentation and scientific in predicting future individuals behavior, behavioral theory advocates for the assessment of individuals interactions in the organization. This theory also supports for individuals attitudes and traits. Lastly but not least, social cognitive theory focuses on individuals expectations. The management bases on the theory to make a judgment concerning various issues that influence organization performance. Examples of social theories of personality include attributional style theory, and achievement style theory. Therefore, these theories are critical in equipping managers with insights on personality and individual differences in the organization and how they affect organization behavior.

Models

The Five Factor Model is used to expound on the impact of personality traits on the execution of roles. These five factors personality models include openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Costa and McCrae 2013, p. 17). These five dimensions are critical to personality. An individual can have either one or two dimensions, but not all of them. Current managers are thus expected to be conversant of these traits in individuals and capitalize on people strength to improve business performance. Managers can comfortably base on the Five Factor model of personality to classify the unique personality of individuals in the organization. The management should thus utilize the Five Factor Model to establish a propitious work environment that encourages and supports employees to always aim higher and work towards hitting the targets (Milfont and Sibley 2012, p. 188).

Openness personality focuses on individuality and creativeness of individuals in every situation. It describes how individuals in the organization strive to create new and improved things. The facets of openness include ideas, values, actions, feelings, and fantasy. Understanding attributes to openness enables the management assign roles to employees according to their abilities and further provide the required resources that enhance organization’s success. The management can also base on these attributes to help those with low scores (Costa and McCrae 2013, p. 17). The second dimension is conscientiousness. This factor revolves around the organization and perseverance among the employees in ensuring critical tasks of the organization are executed as planned. The most important facets of conscientiousness include competence, order, dutifulness, achievement, deliberation, and self-discipline. From this attributes, the management identifies committed, dependable and hard working employees and encourages others to persevere challenges associated with executing tasks. This personality also helps managers to manage employees in different situations effectively.

Third, extraversion dimension focuses on the sociability of individual’s in the organization and the source of motivation among themselves. Low scores on the facets of extraversion is a clear indication of the internal source of energy while the high score is indicative of the external source of energy (Klimstra et al. 2013, p. 774). Its main attributes include assertiveness, warmth, activity, positive emotions, and excitement. Leaders also apply extraversion in ensuring the proper relationship is established between organization departments and also between employees.

The fourth dimension is agreeableness and describes trust, compliance, and honesty. Individuals that possess these personality traits tend to be transparent and straightforward in all their undertakings. Agreeableness is highly desired since it enhances collaboration among the employees and usually improves outputs per person. The facets of agreeableness include straightforwardness, trust, altruism, modesty, and compliance. Management, therefore, applies both agreeableness and extraversion to manage group dynamism in the organization effectively. Positive traits are encouraged because they are critical in enhancing unity among employees. Through agreeableness, misunderstandings among the employees that can probably result in conflicts are amicably solved without interfering business performance. Last, neuroticism focuses on the emotional ability of individuals (Klimstra, Bleidorn, Asendorpf, Van Aken and Denissen 2013, p. 770). This dimension describes negative emotional experiences and how they influence organization behavior. Its facets include anxiety, anger, depression, self-consciousness, vulnerability, and impulsiveness. The management should establish measures to assist employees to overcome negative emotions which de-motivate employees from perfectly executing their roles.

How Personality and Individual Differences Relates with Organization Behavior and Employee Motivation

Every person in the organization is unique. For instance, people could have undergone the same training, but their reactions to various circumstances and how they handle issues differ significantly. However, there is a strong connection between personality and individual differences and organization behavior and further motivation. The relationship is described as shown in the forthcoming sub-topics.

Relatedness with Organization Behavior

As earlier noted, organization behavior studies how individuals interact of individuals with each other in the organization. Some of the aspects, which are factored under this subject, include group formation, organization culture, employee relatedness, and other issues that discuss worker dynamics (Wagner and Hollenbeck 2014). On the other hand, personality and individual differences are qualities displayed by individuals while reacting to reacting to various situations in the organization. It is just a continuation of organization behavior. The extent to which personality and individual difference describe characters and abilities of individuals in executing duties, handling different situations and the interaction with others and the management is entirely aspects of organization behavior (Wagner and Hollenbeck 2014).

Relatedness with Motivation

Employee motivation explains workers commitment to ensuring that they timely and efficiently complete their duties. Motivated employees always aim for achieving better results that even exceeds management projections. Employees become creative to ensure they yield maximum results from the little resources in the organization. Motivated employees usually compete on how to perfectly complete duties. Such competition increases organization chances of achieving exceeding results.

The management bases on organization behavior to identify the primary aspects to use in rating employees. Through organization behavior, the management can ascertain what practices can motivate workers. The management can also apply organization behavior to identify aspects that deter employees from delivering the best. For instance, managers can use organization behavior knowledge to influence departmental group formation that will regularly ascertain individual’s performance and motivate the hardworking. Therefore, through the understanding of personality and individual differences which are sub-sections of the organization behavior the management can embrace best practices that increase employee commitment. Some of the decisions include; giving dignity and respect to employees, recognizing every hard working employees, giving better rewards and packages to hard working employees, establishing efficient and appropriate communication structures, etc. Gaining insights of how and when to embrace these factors are linked to learning personality and individual differences.

Impact of Personality and Individual Difference on Employee Motivation

The link between knowing and doing the work among employees depend on personality and individual differences. Currently, employers are expected to identify both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that motivate employees (Rahim et al. 2014, p. 239). Thereafter, the management should ensure appropriate plans are formulated to enhance effective implementation of motivation program. Because individuals have different personalities, the source of motivation tends to vary from one person to the other (Awadh and Ismail 2012, p. 110). However, others sharply contradict intrinsic motivation and can only work harder if they are given monetary rewards and promotions. Such individuals might possess relevant skills that can achieve results within shortest time. Therefore, the management should identify the two groups and apply the relevant motivational program to ensure everyone yields the maximum output.

On the other hand, individual differences sometimes exist among the employees because of the variation in personality (Awadh and Ismail 2012, p. 117). People can be different because of the social backgrounds, differences in education levels difference are aspiration, and so forth. Individual differences, therefore, influence motivation depending on how best one can do a particular task or the motive behind doing the job. Concisely, personality and individual differences have an equal role in determining the level of motivation. They can either positively or negatively impact on employee’s motivation. Management should thus base on how personality and individual differences are portrayed among the workers to develop motivational programs (Oliver et al. 2010).

Employee motivation is essential because it helps the organization to achieve its objectives within the shortest time possible. Motivated employees apply most of their skills in ensuring operations in the company are effectively executed. Lack of motivation reduces organization performances and hardworking employees that value monetary rewards as a source of motivation may be forced to seek employment from competitors where they can earn these benefits (Jiang et al. 2012, p. 1280).

It is an obligation for the management to ensure it establishes employee motivational programs is explained in the motivational theories. The administration is expected to refer to these theories and ensure the crafted program is effectively supported by the current resources of the organization (Radmanovac 2015, p. 109). Some of these theories include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Vroom’s Expectancy theories, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, and Locke’s Goal theory. Herzberg’s two-factor theory significantly suits the personality and individual difference because it explains the level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the employees for the jobs done which vary from one person to the other. Therefore, Maslow theory of motivation and others as stated in this section both addresses how employees can be motivated by basing on personality and individual differences.

Conclusion

In conclusion, personality and individual differences significantly determine how individuals behave and interact with each other. The management ought to refer from theories of personality and individual differences in establishing appropriate management practices that can be used to enhance the achievement of the best from the employees. Also, personality and individual differences are sub-sections that are incorporated in organization behavior and assist the management in identifying and developing vital employee motivation programs that can be used in the organization. Lastly, it is also apparent that individuals are different and the management should ensure it develops a functional system that acknowledges the role of employees and applies various motivational approaches to ensure organization performance is improved.

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