How personality and individual differences effect on motivation - Essay Example

Effects of personality and individual differences on employee motivation and organisational behaviour Table of contents Introduction 3 Personality and individual differences 3 The Big Five Model 4 Impacts of Personality and individual differences on Organisational Behaviour 5 Impacts of Personality and individual differences on Employee Motivation 6 Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory 7 Conclusion 10 Reference list 11 Introduction The values and ethics that an individual possess have the capability of taking them to great heights. Similar is the case with the personality of individuals which differs from one and every. These personality and individual differences cause serious issues in an organisation as well as employee’s motivation (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2007). In this essay, the probable impact of individual and personality differences on organisational behaviour and employee motivation has been the focus point. It states, varying personalities have both positive and negative traits that have the tendency to either do well to an organisation or ruin its entire structure. Moreover, it also has a negative impact on the motivational levels of the employees. These issues have been supported by two important models that have been summarised in the essay. One is The Big Five Model that lays down the five personality traits influencing organisational behaviour, and the second is the model of Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory that explains the impact of individual differences on employee motivation. Hence, the essay argues that personality and individual differences do have an unconstructive effect on organisational and employee performance that is required to be checked on time. Personality and individual differences In the words of Pervin, Cervone and John (2005), “personality refers to those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of feelings, thinking, and behaving”. When it comes to an organisational environment, there are a large variety of people who can be distinguished on the basis of their personality and behaviour. Pervin, Cervone and John (2005) further explained their definition by saying that differences in these personality traits impacts the organisational behaviour and employee motivation. Personality can be treated as a guiding factor of any individual. In fact, individual differences are referred to variations in personality as well as ability. It is the difference in individual personalities that give way to the job of a psychologist whose main task is to identify the exceptionality in individuals (Thompson, 2008). In general, when thought of a person’s personality traits, the questions that come up are why some are talkative while others speak less, why some are too joyful while others are very reserved and so on. These variations are termed as individual differences in psychology. Individual differences in people can be classified on the basis of two factors: the genetic framework of an individual and the situational factors around him (Buss, 2008; Jonassen and Grabowski, 2012). The genetic framework refers to the characteristic features an individual possess from their ancestors. In other words, it refers to the qualities or nature that a person is born with. On the other hand, the situational factors deals with the environment in which a creature operates. They are: the kind of upbringing a human being gets, the ambience at home, type of education, the knowledge that they acquire from their friends, seniors, teachers and the social media that influence them. These are the factors that help in moulding the personality of an individual. However, it can be said that it is not only the legacy that builds up his quality but also his surroundings. Furthermore, when it comes to a firm or organisation, the above mentioned differences do have a bearing on the organisational behaviour and the motivational levels of employees of that organisation. The Big Five Model The impact of personality and individual differences on organisational behaviour can be studied from the perspective of The Big Five Model which can be abbreviated as OCEAN. It stands for: O – Openness is the degree that evaluates the level of originality, creativity, intellectuality and curiosity of an individual. They are considered to be flexible in performance and are always eager to gain knowledge of new things within an organisation (Lievens, 2003; Baer and Oldham, 2006). Employees who possess openness are highly motivated and are capable of catching up things faster. They are perceived to be friendly and have the ability to build stronger relationships with their superiors. As further stated by LePine (2003), these employees are also easily adjustable to changes in the organisation. C – Conscientiousness refers to the qualities of being well organised, goal-oriented, and systemised and always on time. It is assumed to be the only trait that can evenly evaluate the effectiveness of an employee in different jobs (Costa Jr and McCrae, 2013). In fact, it is perceived as a trait that pleases recruiters the most (Tay, Ang and Van Dyne, 2006; Judge and Ilies, 2002). Moreover, such employees are also expected to be regular at work, that is, their absenteeism rates are low. According to Zhao and Seibert (2006), this particular personality trait enables individuals to start up their own businesses. E – Bono and Judge (2004) states that extraversion deals with the characteristic that makes people gregarious, assertive and chatty and equally enjoy the company of societal groups. The authors further mention that they are found to be suitable for sales and marketing profiles. They prove to be well mannered and leaders of organisations (Bauer, et. al., 2006). In addition to openness, extraversion is also a quality that makes individuals adaptable to organisational changes. They are found to be happy and delighted with their jobs (Judge, Heller and Mount, 2002). A – Agreeableness is the level to which a person is liberal, polite, sorted out, innocent and temperate in nature. They have the capability to mix up well with the people around them. In the view of Ilies, Scott and Judge (2006), there are no possible barriers that can keep them away from success. Moreover, they are also characterised as extremely helpful. Every team in an organisation wish to have such people as they consider them great assets. N – Neuroticism is the degree to which individuals are grumpy, short-tempered and destructive. Such individuals are said to face a lot of problems within organisations and also difficulties in adjusting with their surroundings; possess the tendency of quitting their jobs but actually do not do so (Klein, et. al., 2004; Zimmerman, 2008). Mayer, et. al., (2007) was of the view that such individuals create an unhappy and undesirable environment within organisations. Impacts of Personality and individual differences on Organisational Behaviour As stated by DuBrin (2013) in his book, “organisational behaviour may be defined as the systematic study of the nature of organisations: how they begin, grow and develop, and their effect on individual members, constituent groups, other organisations and larger institutions.” Therefore, organisational behaviour refers to the study of the behaviour of different individuals or employees within an organisation which deals with their actions or attitudes. The personality and individual differences play a major role in evaluating organisational behaviour (Griffin and Moorhead, 2011; Robbins, et. al., 2013). Therefore, the study of psychology is to be applied in determining the impact of personality and individual differences on organisational behaviour. It is a well-known fact that there are continuous fluctuations in the moods and attitudes of the employees within an organisation. Personality and individuality can have both positive as well as negative effect on the organisation. This study of positivity and negativity depends on the ways in which folks preview their jobs at the workplace (Borman and Motowidlo, 2014; Fillmore, Kempler and Wang, 2014). Some people or employees are energetic all the time, remain motivated, elated and have a continuous interest towards working harder. These people are said to have a positive impact on organisations. They always keep a positive view about their colleagues and opponents and also experience positive emotional vibes. On the other hand, there are individuals, who are always lethargic and lazy, do not possess any positivity towards their work, are nervous and anxious. There are many organisations where majority of the workforce experience working with colleagues who can be termed as “negative”, that is, people who always have the mentality that whatever they do would turn out to be against the organisation. It has been found that such people not only perform feebly, themselves but also tend to have an awful impact on the others performing well (DuBrin, 2013). DuBrin (2013) further specified the areas where these personality traits can have a pessimistic impact on an organisation can be summarised as under: In the field of decision making, negative people have a propensity of taking wrong decisions which adversely affects an organisation. When working in teams, a single member with a negative state of mind can have a bad impact on the result of the whole team. Generally employees with maximum negativity are subjected to aggression in an organisation. They are perceived as weak and the positive-minded people prey on them. Impacts of Personality and individual differences on Employee Motivation Employees in an organisation remain motivated and dedicated towards their jobs only when they feel satisfied with what they experience during their stay in their workplaces or the benefits that they get there. In simple words, it is the nature of people they come across, the environment or the surroundings that helps in keeping the motivational levels of the workers intact. For instance, if a worker gets paid less for a job where he has to work at a stretch without any break and also under pressure, he may not be completely satisfied with his job even though he continues to work in that same organisation. In such a situation, he is not able to deliver the desired results that the organisation demands. This contradictory situation on employee satisfaction has been very well explained by Frederick Herzberg through his Two Factor Theory. Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory on employee motivation was established in the year 1959. It resulted from an extensive research work of around five years on various job attitudes. He was of the view that there are two extreme points to the theory of job and employee satisfaction. They were: firstly, the employees are satisfied or dissatisfied with their jobs; and secondly, neither are the employees satisfied with their jobs nor are they dissatisfied. Employees tend to move along these two conditions (Dartey-Baah and Amoako, 2011; Richard, 2012). This formed the subject matter of Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory. He explains that the two factors on which the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of employees depends are: the motivating factors (satisfiers) and the hygiene factors (dissatisfiers). Therefore, the Herzberg’s two-factor theory is sometimes also termed as motivational-hygiene model. He listed down the points that could be termed as the satisfiers and the dissatisfiers. The motivational factors/satisfiers were: accomplishment, expansion, development, appreciation and accountability. By these, Herzberg meant that employees should be provided with these facilities so that they remain motivated and dedicated towards their jobs (Gupta and Tayal, 2013). The hygiene factors/dissatisfiers were: operational conditions, administration, job protection, earnings, business rule, individual life and interpersonal affairs. These points were meant to be the improvements that should be made so that a favourable work environment is created within an organisation (Pinder, 2014). Creating a perfect organisational work condition along with high employee satisfaction levels is the requirement of the present economy. It can be said that both The Big Five Model and the Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory can be used to determine the impact of personality and individual differences on organisational behaviour and employee motivation. From analysing the Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, it can be said that the various motivational and hygiene factors such as achievement, responsibility, recognition, salary, personal or working relationships and job security definitely contribute to employee motivation; but they can be criticised on several grounds. Levy (2003) referred the motivational factors as intrinsic factors and the hygiene factors as extrinsic factors that together contribute to job satisfaction and employee motivation. On the contrary, Schroer (2008) stated that intrinsic values of an individual cannot be linked to the extrinsic values. Instead, employee job satisfaction largely depends on factors like age or educational levels. He further explained that social status, education, age and sex are some factors that influence job satisfaction but have not been taken into consideration by Fredrick Herzberg in his theory. Moreover, Malik and Naeem (2013) further stated in their journal that the intrinsic factors, that is, the motivational factors should be held responsible for both job satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction. This was in contrary to what Herzberg had stated regarding the motivational factors which can be accounted for only employee job satisfaction and not dissatisfaction. Another criticism as pointed out by Malik and Naeem was that extrinsic rewards such as promotions, increase in pay and fringe benefits greatly contribute to job satisfaction. So far as The Big Five Model is concerned, it has been argued by Judge and Ilies (2002) that not all personality traits specified by the model have a negative or a positive impact on employee motivation. He explained that while conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness had a positive effect on employee motivation, neuroticism adversely affected employee job satisfaction levels. On the other hand, openness to experience is a trait that is an integral part of employee motivation and which cannot be avoided at any cost. Furthermore, the impact of the personality traits of Big Five Model has also been summarised by Mhlanga (2012). He stated that employees who had more of the openness and conscientiousness traits and less of neuroticism were more satisfied and motivated towards their work, whereas, employees who were high on extraversion and agreeableness did not have any notable impact on employee motivation. Mhlanga, however, concluded that the Big Five Model was not a feasible theory to explain the impact of personality and individual differences on employee motivation and job satisfaction. As stated in the article “The Five-Factor Model of Personality in the Workplace”, Stupak (2004) also made an attempt to criticise the impact of the model on employee motivation in particular. He explained that the personality traits of the model only referred to the nature and the attitudes of the employees in the workplace environment. A more important trait that needs to be focused on to evaluate the impact of individual differences on employee motivation is the ability to complete their jobs efficiently and with accuracy; such an employee is considered to be more motivated and satisfied with their jobs instead of employees who are friendly with everyone. Hurtz and Donovan (2000) were also of the view that conscientiousness is the only factor that has a favourable impact on employee motivation. Thus, the critical analysis of the Big Five Model can be concluded with the views of Boyle, Matthews and Saklofske (2008) who stated that the overall impact of The Big Five Model on employee motivation and job satisfaction is still questionable on ground of its worthiness. Conclusion Achievement of effective organisational behaviour and employee satisfaction has been the primary aim of this paper. Emphasis has been laid on The Big Five Model and the Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory which helped in bringing out the possible impacts of individual differences on organisational behaviour and employee satisfaction. There are many factors which are accountable for impacting organisational behaviour as well as employee satisfaction. Some of the factors summarised above are: the personality traits of the individuals, the way they greet their superiors and leaders, their perspective towards the job they are required to perform, whether an employee is an introvert or an extrovert and many more. All these factors are said to have a positive impact on an organisation and its employees and at the same time, a negative impact too. However, it can be concluded from the above paper that an organisation should work on all these factors so that it does not have a negative impact on it and also on the workers in general. After having applied the two models and analysing the results, the first and the foremost question that needs to be asked is whether the improvement in the factors of the above models has actually generated any positive results in the organisation and the employees or not. An assessment of this answer will only lead to a favourable organisational framework and efficient employee base. Reference list Baer, M. and Oldham, G. R., 2006. The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: Moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, pp. 963–970. Bauer, T. N., Erdogan, B., Liden, R. C. and Wayne, S. J., 2006. A longitudinal study of the moderating role of extraversion: Leader-member exchange, performance, and turnover during new executive development. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, pp. 298–310. Bono, J. E. and Judge, T. A., 2004. Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, pp. 901–910. Borman, W. C. and Motowidlo, S. J., 2014. Organizational citizenship behavior and contextual performance: A special issue of human performance. London: Psychology Press. Boyle, G. J., Matthews, G. and Saklofske, D. H. (2008). The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Personality Measurement and Testing. London: Sage. 2, pp. 200-205. Buss, D. M., 2008. Human Nature and Individual Differences. Handbook of personality, pp. 29-60. Chamorro-Premuzic, T., 2007. Personality and individual differences. Boston: Blackwell publishing. Costa Jr, P. T. and McCrae, R. R. (2013). The five-factor model of personality and its relevance to personality disorders. Personality and Personality Disorders: The Science of Mental Health, 7, p. 17. Dartey-Baah, K. and Amoako, G. K., 2011. Application of Frederick Herzbergs Two-Factor theory in assessing and understanding employee motivation at work: a Ghanaian Perspective. European Journal of Business and Management, 3(9), pp. 1-8. DuBrin, A. J. (2013). Fundamentals of organizational behaviour: An applied perspective. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 3-8. Fillmore, C. J., Kempler, D. and Wang, W. S., 2014. Individual differences in language ability and language behavior. United States: Academic Press. Gibson, J., Ivanevich, L., John, M. and Donnelly, J. H., 2000. “Organisations-Behaviour- StructureProcesses.” 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Griffin, R. and Moorhead, G., 2011. Organizational behavior. Boston: Cengage Learning. Gupta, A. and Tayal, T., 2013. Impact of competing force of motivational factors on employees at work place. In Information and Knowledge Management, 3(5), pp. 143-148. Hurtz, G. M. and Donovan, J. J. (2000). Personality and job performance: The Big Five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, pp. 869-879. Ilies, R., Scott, B. A. and Judge, T. A., 2006. The interactive effects of personal traits and experienced states on intraindividual patterns of citizenship behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 49, pp. 561–575. Jonassen, D. H. and Grabowski, B. L., 2012. Handbook of individual differences, learning, and instruction. London: Routledge. Judge, T. A. and Ilies, R., 2002. Relationship of personality to performance motivation: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 797–807. Judge, T. A., Heller, D. and Mount, M. K., 2002. Five-factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 530–541. Klein, K. J., Beng-Chong, L., Saltz, J. L. and Mayer, D. M., 2004. How do they get there? An examination of the antecedents of centrality in team networks. Academy of Management Journal, 47, pp. 952–963. LePine, J. A., 2003. Team adaptation and post change performance: Effects of team composition in terms of members’ cognitive ability and personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, pp. 27–39. Levy, P.L. (2003). Industrial/organisational psychology: Understanding the workplace. Boston: Houghton Miflin Company. Lievens, F., Harris, M. M., Van Keer, E. and Bisqueret, C., 2003. Predicting cross-cultural training performance: The validity of personality, cognitive ability, and dimensions measured by an assessment center and a behavior description interview. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, pp. 476–489. Malik, M. E. and Naeem, B. (2013). Towards Understanding Controversy on Herzberg Theory of Motivation. World Applied Sciences Journal, 24 (8), pp. 1031-1036. Mayer, D., Nishii, L., Schneider, B. and Goldstein, H., 2007. The precursors and products of justice climates: Group leader antecedents and employee attitudinal consequences. Personnel Psychology, 60, pp. 929–963. Mhlanga, T. S. (2012). An investigation into the relationship between certain personality traits and job satisfaction: A case of selected bank employees in the Eastern Cape Province. University of Fort Hare. Pervin, L. A., Cervone, D. and John, O. P. (2005). Personality: Theory and Research (9th ed.). pp. 6, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Pinder, C. C., 2014. Work motivation in organizational behavior. London: Psychology Press. Richard, A., 2012. Job Satisfaction from Herzbergs Two Factor Theory Perspective. Organisation Behaviour, pp. 1-9. Robbins, S., Judge, T. A., Millett, B. and Boyle, M., 2013. Organisational behaviour. London: Pearson Higher Education. Schroer, W. J. (2008). Generations X, Y, Z and the Others. The Journal of the Household Goods Forwarders Association of America, XL, pp. 9-11. Stupak, N. J. (2004). The Five-Factor Model of Personality in the Workplace: the Five-Factor Model is Not Enough to Explain Successful Job Performance. Tay, C., Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L., 2006. Personality, biographical characteristics, and job interview success: A longitudinal study of the mediating effects of interviewing self-efficacy and the moderating effects of internal locus of control. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, pp. 446–454. Thompson, M. M. (2008). Individual Difference Theory and Research: Application to Multinational Coalition Teamwork. R & T Organisation, pp. 2-4. Zhao, H. and Seibert, S. E., 2006. The Big Five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, pp. 259–271. Zimmerman, R. D., 2008. Understanding the impact of personality traits on individuals’ turnover decisions: A meta-analytic path model. Personnel Psychology, 61, pp. 309–348. Read More