TOPIC 2
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR IN ORGANISATIONS
2.1 Definition of Individual Behaviour
Individual Behaviour defines how individual behave at work and how his/her behavior is influence by others through: attitudes, perception, personality, stress, beliefs and norms or other psychological matters.
Individual behavior also refers to how individual behaves at work place, his behavior is influenced by his attitude, personality, perception, learning and motivating. This also refers to the combination of responses to internal and external stimuli.
2.2 It is important first to understand what makes people behave in the way by looking into the following determinants;
- Personality Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. Personality describes the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
“Personality is defined as the dynamic organizations within the individual of these psycho-physical system that determine his unique adjustment to his environment “ by Gordon Allport.
Personality Determinants
- Heredity
Heredity refer to those factors that were determined at conception e.g. physical structure , facial attractiveness , gender , temperaments , muscles composition & reflexes , energy level and biological rhythms are characteristics that are influenced by biological parents either completely or substantially.
- Environment
Environmental factors play a role in shaping personalities .They include; the norms among family, friendship and social groups. These factors determine what individual experience in life.
- Situation
These influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality .An individual personality while generally stable and consistent, does change in different situation.
Different demands in different situations call forth different aspects of one’s personality.
Major Personality Attributes Influencing Organization Behaviour
- Core self evaluation
These is the degree to which individuals like or dislike themselves whether they see themselves as capable and effective and whether they feel they are in control of their environment or powerless over it .an individual core self evaluation is determined by:
- Self esteem:- which is the individuals degree of liking or disliking themselves and the degree to which they feel worthy or unworthy as a person .
- Locus of control :- which is the degree to which people believe that 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 factors such as luck or chance.
- Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism (Mach) is named after Niccolo Machiavelli who wrote on how to gain and use power. Machiavellianism is the degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance and believes that ends justifies means.
- Narcissm
Narcissm is the tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self importance, require excessive admiration and have sense of entitlement. Narcissm’s are not effective especially when dealing with people.
- Self monitoring
Self monitoring refers to an individual ability to adjust his/ her behavior to external or situational factors. Individual’s high in self monitoring show considerable adaptability in adjusting their behavior to external situational factors.
- Risk taking
People differ in their willingness to take chances. This propensity to assume or avoid risk has been shown to have an impact on how long it takes managers to make a decision and how much information they require before making their choice. High risk taking managers are said to make more rapid decision compared to low risk taking managers
- Type A personality
A person with type A personality is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time and if necessary against the opposing efforts of other things or other people. Type A’s operate under moderate to high levels of stress. They subject themselves to more or less continuous time pressure ,creating for themselves a life of deadlines.
- Proactive personality
These are people who identify opportunities , show initiative, take caution and persevere until meaningful change occurs. They create positive change in their environment, regardless or even in spite of constraints or obstacles .
- Values
Values represent 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 .
- Values contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual idea as to what is right, good or desirable.
- In organization behavior values are important study because they lay on foundation for the understanding of attitudes , perceptions and motivation
Sources of value systems
- The values people hold are essentially established in their early years from parents , teachers , friends and relatives. However as one grows up, he gets exposed to other value systems and this alters some of his values.
- Values can be reactive, tribalism, egocentric , conformity, manipulative Socio centric, existential.
- Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience .
Source and Consequences of Job Satisfaction
- Pay Wages are a significant factor in job satisfaction .Money not only helps people to attain their basic needs, but it is instrumental in providing upper level need satisfaction
- Work itself The content of the work itself is another major source of satisfaction .Work should be challenging not boring and a job that provides status.
- Promotions Promotional opportunities seem to have a varying effect on job satisfaction .This is because promotions take a number of different forms and have a variety of accompanying rewards .
- Supervision Supervision is another moderately important source of job satisfaction .A participative climate created by the supervision has a more substantial effect on workers satisfaction than it does in participation a specific decision .
- Work group The nature of work groups will have an effect on job satisfaction. Freindly co- operative co-workers are a modest source of job satisfaction to individual employees.
- Working conditions Working conditions are another factor that have a modest effect on job satisfaction e.g. clean and attractive surroundings for instance will enable the personnel to find its easier to carry out their jobs.
Learning
Learning is a process in which experience brings about permanent changes in behaviour or attitudes .The study of learning has had to concentrate on observable changes.
Learning is a process by which human beings becomes aware of themselves and their environment and the need to adopt the one to the other in order to survive, grow and prosper .
Learning is a process by which people acquire knowledge , understanding skills and values and apply them to solve problems throughout their daily life.
Factors affecting learning
Human learning is a complex process involving numerous internal and external factors . Internal Factors
– Health
– Intellectual capacity
– Motivation
– Special aptitudes
– Temperament
– Personal values
– Past experiences
External factors
– Ability of teacher’s role
– Learning consent
– Teaching methods
– Feedback of results
– Learning Aids
– Learning context
- Perception
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment .
