Individual Behavior in Organizations

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.

It is  important  first  to  understand  what  makes  people  behave  in the  way by  looking  into  the following  determinants;

1. 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  

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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

  1. 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.
  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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

  1. 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.

  1. 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 .

  1. 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.
  1. 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

  1. 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
  2. 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.
  3. 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  .
  4. 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 .
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

4. 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

  1. Perception

Perception  is  a  process  by which  individuals  organize  and  interpret  their  sensory impressions  in order  to  give  meaning  to their  environment .



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