Chapter 4

Personality
and Values

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
S T E P H E N P. R O B B I N S
E L E VTWELFTH
E N T HEDITION
E D I T I O N
© 2005 Prentice Hall Inc. WWW.PRENHALL.COM/ROBBINS PowerPoint Presentation
All rights reserved. by Charlie Cook
 What is Personality?

Personality
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts
and interacts with others.

Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics Personality
that describe an Determinants
individual’s behavior. • Heredity
• Environment
• Situation

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 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

A personality test that taps four characteristics and
classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types.

Personality Types
• Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
• Sensing vs. Intuitive (S or N)
• Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F)
• Judging vs. Perceiving (P or J)

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 Myers-
Briggs
Sixteen
Primary
Traits

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 Locus of Control

Locus of Control
The degree to which people believe they
are masters of their own fate.

Internals
Individuals who believe that they
control what happens to them.

Externals
Individuals who believe that
what happens to them is
controlled by outside forces
such as luck or chance.

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 Self-Esteem and Self-Monitoring

Self-Esteem (SE)
Individuals’ degree of liking
or disliking themselves.

Self-Monitoring
A personality trait that measures
an individuals ability to adjust
his or her behavior to external,
situational factors.

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 Risk-Taking
 High Risk-taking Managers
– Make quicker decisions
– Use less information to make decisions
– Operate in smaller and more entrepreneurial
organizations
 Low Risk-taking Managers
– Are slower to make decisions
– Require more information before making decisions
– Exist in larger organizations with stable environments

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 Personality Types
Type A’s
1. are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly;
2. feel impatient with the rate at which most events take place;
3. strive to think or do two or more things at once;
4. cannot cope with leisure time;
5. are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in
terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire.

Type B’s
1. never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its
accompanying impatience;
2. feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements
or accomplishments;
3. play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their
superiority at any cost;
4. can relax without guilt.
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 Personality Types

Proactive Personality
Identifies opportunities,
shows initiative, takes
action, and perseveres
until meaningful change
occurs.
Creates positive change
in the environment,
regardless or even in
spite of constraints or
obstacles.

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 Values
Values
Basic convictions that a specific
mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is personally or socially
preferable to an opposite or
converse mode of conduct or
end-state of existence.

Value System
A hierarchy based on a ranking of
an individual’s values in terms of
their intensity.
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 Importance of Values

 Provide understanding of the attitudes,

motivation, and behaviors of individuals and
cultures.
 Influence our perception of the world around us.
 Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong.”
 Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are
preferred over others.

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 Types of Values –- Rokeach Value Survey

Terminal Values
Desirable end-states of
existence; the goals that a
person would like to achieve
during his or her lifetime.

Instrumental Values
Preferable modes of behavior
or means of achieving one’s
terminal values.

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 Values in
the
Rokeach
Survey

Source: M. Rokeach, The Nature of Human

Values (New York: The Free Press, 1973).

E X H I B I T 3–1

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 Values in
the
Rokeach
Survey
(cont’d)

Source: M. Rokeach, The Nature of Human

Values (New York: The Free Press, 1973).

E X H I B I T 3–1 (cont’d)

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 Mean Value Rankings of
Executives, Union
Members, and Activists

Source: Based on W. C. Frederick and J. Weber, “The Values of

Corporate Managers and Their Critics: An Empirical Description and
Normative Implications,” in W. C. Frederick and L. E. Preston (eds.)
Business Ethics: Research Issues and Empirical Studies (Greenwich,
CT: JAI Press, 1990), pp. 123–44.

E X H I B I T 3–2

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 Dominant Work Values in Today’s Workforce

E X H I B I T 3–3

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 Values, Loyalty, and Ethical Behavior

Ethical Values and

Behaviors of Leaders

Ethical Climate in
the Organization
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 Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Cultures

Power Distance
The extent to which a society accepts that
power in institutions and organizations is
distributed unequally.
low distance: relatively equal distribution
high distance: extremely unequal distribution

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 Hofstede’s Framework (cont’d)
Individualism Collectivism
The degree to which A tight social framework in
people prefer to act as which people expect
individuals rather than others in groups of which
a member of groups. they are a part to look
after them and protect
them.

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 Hofstede’s Framework (cont’d)

Achievement
The extent to which societal
values are characterized by
assertiveness, materialism and
competition.

Nurturing
The extent to which societal
values emphasize relationships
and concern for others.

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 Hofstede’s Framework (cont’d)

Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels threatened by
uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to
avoid them.

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 Hofstede’s Framework (cont’d)

Long-term Orientation
A national culture attribute
that emphasizes the future,
thrift, and persistence.

Short-term Orientation
A national culture attribute that
emphasizes the past and
present, respect for tradition,
and fulfilling social obligations.

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 Achieving Person-Job Fit

Personality-Job Fit
Theory (Holland)
Personality Types
Identifies six personality
types and proposes that • Realistic
the fit between personality • Investigative
type and occupational
• Social
environment determines
satisfaction and turnover. • Conventional
• Enterprising
• Artistic

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 Holland’s
Typology of
Personality
and
Congruent
Occupations

E X H I B I T 4–2

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 Relationships
among
Occupational
Personality
Types

Source: Reprinted by special permission of the publisher, Psychological

Assessment Resources, Inc., from Making Vocational Choices, copyright 1973, E X H I B I T 4–3
1985, 1992 by Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. All rights reserved.

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