3

PERSONALITY
 CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY
The word personality is derived from Latin word ‘per sonar’, which refers to speak
through. According to Webster's dictionary personality is the pattern of collective
character, behavioural, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of an individual.
It involves sum-total of internal and external qualities of an individual.
It shows how an individual acts and interacts with others when dealing with a subject
matter.
It relates to the physical and psychological growth and development of the individual.
It shows an individual's ability of dealing with people and environment.
The following are some views of prominent scholars about personality:
“Personality is the sum-total of way in which an individual reacts and
interacts with others.”
 Stephen P Robbins

"Personality may be understood as the characteristics patterns of behaviour

and modes of thinking that determine a person's adjustment to the
environment."
 Hilgard et.al,
 NATURE/FEATURES OF PERSONALITY
Personality is the pattern of collective character, behavioural, temperamental, emotional,
and mental traits of an individual.
It shows how an individual acts and interacts with others when dealing with a subject
matter.
It shows an individual's ability of dealing with people and environment.
It relates to the physical and psychological growth and development of the individual.
The personality traits are partially contributed by heredity factors and partially
developed through experience and practices.
It is directed towards achievement of specific objectives.
Personality influence on behaviour of individual.
It deals with whole person not the part of a person.
In organizational setting, the personality of manager totally affect on each and every
activity.
 PERSONALITY TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS

Psychologists have identified literally thousands of personality traits and dimensions that differentiate one person from
another. But in recent years researchers have identified five fundamental traits that are especially relevant to organizations.
The big five factors are as follows:

Extroversion

Openness to Experience Agreeableness

Personality Traits and
Characteristics

Emotional Stability Conscientiousness

1.Extroversion: This dimension of personality shows relationship ability of an
individual. It stress on level of comfort of an individual while maintaining
relationship with other people and environment. In this dimension persons may be
may be extroverts or introverts.
a. Extroverts: Extrovert individuals are interactive with people and they always
try to involve in any events. By nature they are talkative, sociable, and self-
confident. They show self-confidence while dealing with any problem or situation.
They are good for maintaining public relation.
b. Introverts: Introvert individuals are reserved in nature and they do not want to
involve in any events. By nature they are quiet, shy and cautious. They show alert
and have feeling of carefulness while dealing with others. As far as possible they
do not want to maintain close relation with all the people.
2. Agreeableness: This dimension of personality shows a person’s
ability to get along with others. Some persons are cooperative and
trustworthy and they also belief on others. Similarly, some persons
are non-cooperative and they do not belief on others. According to
this dimension persons may be agreeable or disagreeable.
a. Agreeable: Agreeable persons tend to be good in nature, cooperative, and
trusting. They are courteous, caring, and emphatic. They always belief on others
and want maintain trustworthy relation with them. They always think for
wellbeing and prosperity of other people.
b. Disagreeable: Disagreeable persons are complex and aggressive in nature.
They are cold, non-cooperative and antagonistic, and rude. They do not consider
value of others. They do not belief on others and never want to maintain
courteous relation with others. They think of only for own benefit and prosperity
and not for others.
3. Conscientiousness: This dimension of personality focuses on consistency in
behaviour. It measures reliability of goals on which a person focuses. This dimension
emphasizes that some persons are careful and conscientious while determining goals, doing
activities and showing behaviour. According to this dimension persons may be high
conscientious or low conscientious.
a. High Conscientious: A highly conscientious persons are responsible, organized,
dependable and persistent. They are careful and self-disciplined. They do activities in
systematic and organized manner.
b. Low Conscientious: Low conscientious persons tend to be easily distracted, unreliable
and disorganized. They are not careful and lack of self-disciplined. They do activities
randomly without considering system.
4. Emotional Stability: This dimension of personality deals with a person’s ability
to face and work in stress. In the course of regular activities in the organization, an
individual may face difficult situations and problems which may create mental and
physical pressure. From this dimension, individual may be emotional stable or
emotional unstable.
a. Emotional Stable: Persons having emotional stable tend to be calm, self-
confident, secure and relaxed. When such persons face any difficult problems and
situation they never come into depression. They always remain calm and feel secure.

b. Emotional Unstable: Persons having emotional unstable tend to be nervous,

depressed, anxious and insecure. When such persons face any difficult problems and
situation they come into depression They always have feeling of anxious and
insecure.
5. Openness to Experience: This dimension of personality deals with range of interests and
fascination with novelty. In practice, some people tend to give emphasis to creativity and
innovation. According to this dimension, individuals may be high openness or low openness.
a. High Openness: High openness people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive.
They tend to give emphasis for creativity and innovation. They have the curiosity to learn new
concept, idea, experience, knowledge and technology. They are flexible and have attitude to
work in new environment.
b. Low Openness: On the other hand, persons having low openness tend to be resistant to
change, closed to new ideas, and fixed in their ways. They are conventional and find comfort
in the familiar. They never want to learn new idea, knowledge, experience and concept. As far
as possible they resist the change.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
Personality is a dynamic concept. There is no any single factor that determines our personality.
The number of biological and environmental factors shapes our personality and behaviour.
Generally, personality of an individual is affected by three main factors consisting of heredity,
environment and situational factors.

Heredity Personality Environment

 Biological  Cultural Factors
 Physiological  Social Group
 Inherent Psychological
Situational Factors
1. Heredity:
Heredity refers to transmission of the qualities from the parents through genes located
in the chromosomes. It refers to biological, physiological and inherent psychological
factors that determine personality of an individual. The heredity characteristics involve
physical stature, facial attractiveness, temperament, muscles composition, energy
level, attractiveness etc.
Evidence shows that features such as fear, shyness, distress, and emotion are most
likely caused by inherited genetic characteristics. Research indicates that near about
fifty percent of personality characteristics of an individual are genetically inherited.
2. Environmental Factors:
Environmental factors consisting of cultural and social factors play
significant role in shaping personality of an individual. Culture establishes
norms, attitudes, values, belief, custom, tradition, religion and social system.
It passes from one generation to next generation and creates consistencies
over time.
For example, Nepalese children learn from early age the value of hard work.
They learn to respect and value elders. They want to maintain close relation
with family members and consider social value.

3. Situation:
Situational factors also provide impact on personality of an individual.
Situation influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality.
How an individual interacts with situation moderates the effect of heredity
and environment on his personality. The personality of an individual would
be changed on the basis of change in situation. Therefore, the personality of
an individual cannot be judged in isolation.
 LINKING AN INDIVIDUAL'S PERSONALITY AND
VALUES TO THE WORKPLACE
The individual personality has expanded to include how well the individual's personality
and values match the organization. This is because managers' focus was to match
employees to specific job. They want to provide job to employees on the basis of their
skills and ability.
However, at present it is expanded to include how well the individual's personality and
values match the organization. This is happened because managers of today are less
interested in an employee's ability to perform a specific job than his flexibility to meet
changing situation and commitment to the organization.
For study of linking an individual's personality and value to the workplace, it is necessary
to study of two concepts consisting of:
Person-job fit
Person-organization fit.
1. Person- job Fit:
John Holland advocated person-job fit theory. He proposes that satisfaction and the
propensity to leave a position depends on how well individuals match their personalities to
a job. This theory argues that when personality of employees and occupation are matched it
maintains job satisfaction and minimizes employee turnover. A realistic person in a
realistic job is in a more consistent situation than a realistic person in an analytical job. It
means job should be provided to employees on the basis of their expertise along with by
considering how they value to assigned job.
The key points of this model are:
 There is basic differences in personality among individuals.
 There are different types of jobs.

 There should be fit between personality and job.

2. Person- organization Fit:
At present, management scholars emphasize to match people to organization along with
jobs. They focus that every organization needs to face dynamic and changing environment
and they must have employees having ability to fit with changing environment of the
society. All the employees must be ready to change task and adapt with team members on
the basis of need of the organization.
They must fit with organizational rules, working procedures, and overall system. They
should not remain limited only to a specific job. They need to be ready to work with team
and contribute to team on the basis of their area of skill and expertise.
The person-organization fit concept argues that new employees selected if match their
value with organizational culture they do not think for leaving the organization.
Similarly, if there is mismatch between employees' ability and responsibility assigned,
they may think to leave the organization.
 MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES
INFLUENCING OB
There are various personality attributes and traits that help to predict individual behaviour. An
understanding of individual personality factors makes it easy to predict individual behaviour in the
organization. The following are the major personality attributes influencing organizational behaviour:

Major
Personality
Attributes
Influencing
Locus of OB
Self Esteem
Control
Self-
Machiavellianism Risk Taking
Monitoring
Type A &
Self Efficacy
Type B
Behaviour
1. Locus of Control:
Locus of control refers to an individual's belief that any event happens is
either within his control or beyond his control. In other words, it is the
degree to which individuals believe that they are master of their own
destiny. Based on this belief, individuals can be classified as internals or
externals.
People who develop an internal locus of control believe that they are
responsible for their own success. Individuals with a high internal locus
of control believe that their interactions with their environment will
produce predictable results
“external locus of control” generally believe that their successes or
failures result from external factors beyond their control, such as luck,
fate, circumstance, injustice, bias, or teachers who are unfair, prejudiced,
or unskilled
2. Self Esteem:
Self-esteem is the degree to which a person has overall positive or
negative feelings about himself. It beliefs about an individual's his own
worth. People with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive way.
They have feeling of self confident and respect themselves.
Persons having high level of self esteem take risk and choose
unconventional jobs. They have creativity and higher levels of job
performance. They work for intrinsic reward.
3. Machiavellianism:
The personality characteristic of Machiavellianism (Mach) is propounded
by Niccolo Machiavelli. In sixteenth century, he introduced a philosophy
of how to gain and use power. Machiavellianism refers to an individual's
propensity to manipulate other people for solving problems or fulfilling
his interest.
According to this attribute personality may be high Mach or low Mach. An
individual having high Mach maintains emotional distance, and believes
that ends can justify means. Here ends focus on objectives and means
focus on resources. Persons having high Mach manipulate more to others
and win more than low Mach.
4. Self- monitoring:
Self-monitoring refers to an individual's ability to adjust his Behaviour to external
situational factors. Based on this attribute, individuals may be classified into two:
high self-monitoring and low self-monitoring.

Individuals having high self-monitoring are capable to adjust their behaviour on

the basis of external situation. They are highly sensitive to external indications and
can behave differently in different situations. They are capable to show different
between their public personality and private life.

However, Low self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in
every situation. There is higher Behavioural consistency between who they are
and what they do. They feel difficult to change behaviour on the basis of
situation. They are less adjustable to new working environment.
5. Risk Taking:
People differ in their willingness to take risk. This propensity to assume or avoid risk
provides impact on how long it takes managers to make a decision and how much
information they require before making their decision choice. Based on this attitude,
people may be classified into two types consisting of high risk taking and low risk taking.

High risk-taking managers made more rapid decisions and used less information in
making their choices. They speculate new ideas, create business opportunity, and want to
work in risk situation. However, low risk taking managers do not want to take decision
on risk. They want clear and detail information before come into final decision. They
want to work in stable situation and more careful for each and every activity.
6. Self Efficacy:
Self-efficacy is a belief that one can perform a specific task successfully. It is job specific
and focuses on one's ability, motivation and resources to complete the assigned task
successfully. It is found that the belief that we can do something is a good predictor of
whether we can actually accomplish the job. According to this dimension, individual may
have high level self-efficacy or low level self-efficacy.
7. Type A and Type B behaviour:
Type A individuals are impatient and aggressive to achieve more within less time.
They tend to be extremely competitive, highly devoted in work and have strong sense
of time urgency. Some of the behavioural patterns of such personality are emphasizing
quantity over quality, working for long time, working fast, and quick decision making.
In organizations, effective sales persons are usually Type A people. In competitive
market it is necessary to do rigorous and aggressive effort to sale any product or
service.

Type B individuals are easy going, sociable, free from urgency of time, non-
competitive and less devoted. They are better on tasks involving judgments, accuracy
rather than speed and team work. The senior managers are usually Type B's
personality. This is because the promotion of organizations needs wise, tactful and
creative personality rather than to those who are merely hasty, impatient, and quick
decisions making.
JOB SATISFACTION
 CONCEPT OF JOB SATISFACTION
Job satisfaction is an employee's general attitude toward the job. It is
an overall attitude of liking and disliking of the job. Job satisfaction
is
the major concern of management. High job satisfaction implies that
employees like and value their job and feel positive toward the job.
Job satisfaction is an integral component of organizational climate
and important element of maintaining management and employee
relationship.
Some of the definitions given by prominent scholars are as follows:
"Job satisfaction is the amount of overall positive feelings that
individuals have toward their job."
 Arnold and Feldman
"job satisfaction is an individual’s general attitude toward his or her
job’."

Stephen P Robbins
"Job satisfaction is a set of favourable or unfavourable feelings with
which employees view their work."
 Newstrom and Davis
 According to Arnold and Feldman, a model of job satisfaction is shown below:

Expectation about Job Discrepancies

 Pay
 Work itself
 Promotion
 Supervision
 Work group Employee Job
Working conditions Satisfaction
According to Arnold and Feldman the comparison between an individual's expectation about job and actual job
conditions in the organization determines his job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Therefore job satisfaction is a
result of employees’ perception of how their job fulfills their expectation. It is determined by the discrepancy
between what individual expect to get from their job and what the job actually offer.
DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF JOB
SATISFACTION
IMPORTANCE OF JOB
SATISFACTION
Proper use of resources
Improve productivity
Source of change
Proper use of human resources
Motivation of employees
Minimizes disputes and strike
Means of coordination
Maintain of employees
Minimizes supervision cost
Achieve business objectives
Proper use of resources: Job satisfaction is considered as an importance means of
proper user of organizational resources. Satisfied workers perform their duties with
full responsibility and dedication. When employees do assigned job with full of
responsibility it helps for proper use of resources consisting of materials, money,
machines and others. It helps to improve competitive strength of the organization.

Improve productivity: Job satisfaction contributes to develop working efficiency of

employees. When employees are satisfied with their job they do assigned job
according to their best of skills and efficiency. It helps for to maximize productivity
through proper utilization of resources. Management can expand its business
activities in large areas for profit and growth of business.
Source of change: The change in the management system and organizational
structure is essential to adjust an organization and its business activities according to
changing environment. In some situation workers, specially, their unions may create
resistance to change. They think about their job security and stability. The satisfied
workers have knowledge about the outcome of changes. They even support the
management for introduction of changes in the organization.
Proper use of human resources: Manpower is the main active factor of production
and is responsible for the best utilization of organizational resources. Job satisfaction
is the means which creates the willingness among workers to do their work in the
best possible way. It facilitates for proper utilization of organizational resources and
to maximize productivity.
Motivation of employees: The motivation of employees is essential for organizational
effectiveness. Generally, employees are motivated through facilities both financial and
non-financial. Job satisfaction helps to motivate employees and develop morality among
them. Employees with high morale become loyal and dedicated to the organisation. They
perform assigned jobs in the best possible manner.

Minimizes supervision cost: Satisfied employees perform assigned job according to their
best of skills and efficiency. Besides, they try to solve work related problems themselves
through mutual discussion. For such employees, simple guidance and timely suggestion is
sufficient. Therefore, regular and close supervision is not required to such employees. It
helps to minimize supervision cost.

Achieve business objectives: Every business organization is established to achieve

economic objectives of earning profit and wealth. Similarly, the main responsibility of the
management is to focus on economic objectives of the organization. Satisfied employees
put their every effort toward the accomplished of assigned jobs. This is helpful to
minimize cost of output or service and maximize profitability.
MEASURING JOB
SATISFACTION
Measuring job satisfaction

Summation
Single global rating Other methods
score methods

a. Job description Index (JDI)

a. Employee interview
b. The Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire
b. Action tendencies
(MSQ)
c. Critical incidents
c. Porter Need Satisfaction Questionnaire ( NSQ)
Single global methods:
In this methods, employees are asked to respond to only one question for judging
their job satisfaction. The question may be such as, “ all things considered how
satisfied you are with your job”. Here employees need to provide response by tick
mark in a number between one and five that corresponds to answer from higher
satisfied to highly dissatisfied. Rating scale is fixed from 1-5 as follows:

Questions for respondants Rating scale

1 2 3 4 5
all things considered how satisfied you are with ✔
your job
Summation score method:
A summation approach is taken as more sophisticated method of employee survey.
It identifies key elements is a job and asks for the employee's feeling about each.
Typical elements here are the nature of work, supervision, present pay, promotion
opportunities, and relations with coworkers. Respondents, rate them on a
standardized scale, and researchers add the ratings and create an overall job
satisfaction score, The summation of job components helps managers to know where
problems exists, making it easier to deal with unhappy employees and solve
problems faster and more accurately. Some of the common summation score
methods are as follows:
a. Job description Index (JDI)
b. The Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (MSQ)
c. Porter Need Satisfaction Questionnaire ( NSQ)
a. Job description index (JDI):
The Job Descriptive Index is designed to measure employees' satisfaction with their
jobs. The JDI is a “component” measure of job satisfaction, meaning that participants
are asked to think about specific components of their job and rate their satisfaction with
those specific components. The JDI is comprised of five components, including
satisfaction with: coworkers, the work itself, pay, opportunities for promotion, and
supervision. It contains separate satisfaction scales for pay, promotion, supervision, the
work itself, and co-workers. It contains three scales consisting of: Yes, No, and No
comment.
Researchers distributed a set of questionnaire individual employee for their response.
After collecting response of all the employees, researchers analyze collected information
with the help of mathematical and statistical tools and finally submit report to the
management for necessary measure.
b. The minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (MSQ):
The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) is designed to measure an
employee's satisfaction with his or her job. This tool is developed by the university of
Minnesota Industrial Relation Center. It involves two ‘ forms: long forms and short
forms.
The long forms involve 100 factors whereas short form involves 20 factors. The short
form MSQ is taken into consideration for research to know. about employee job
atisfaction. The MSQ provides more specific information which is helpful to measure
job satisfaction of employees.
Short form of MSQ involves 20 questionnaires covering many elements of job and
employees such as ability, achievements, activity, advancement, authority, policies and
practices, compensation, coworkers, etc. It involves the following 5 scales for
measuring employee's response:
A sheet of paper having 20 questionnaires is distributed for each employee for their
proper response. The employees can provide tick mark in one scale from 1 to 5 for
every questionnaire. After collecting response of all the employees, researchers
analyze collected information with the help of mathematical and statistical tools and
finally submit report to the management for necessary measure.
C. Porter need satisfaction questionnaire (NSQ):
Lyman Porter's NSQ is used to measure job satisfaction of managerial level staff.
The questions are prepared by focusing problems and challenges faced by the
managers. In this model each element involves two questions, one for “should be”
and another for “is now”. For responding each question, employees have given a
seven scale options containing minimum 1 to maximum 7. It is also known as seven
Liker scale for measuring job satisfaction of employees. Employees need to provide
response by circling one number on the basis of their satisfaction level on job. After
collecting response of all the employees, researchers analyze collected information
with the help of mathematical and statistical tools and even by using computer
software programs such SPSS, SAS, etc. Finally, they prepare report and submit it to
the management for necessary measure.
Other methods:
Besides above mentioned methods of measuring job satisfaction, the following are
some more ways of measuring job satisfaction: '
a. Employee interview: In this method formal or informal interview of employees is
taken by the researchers on the basis of effectiveness. Generally, researchers
personally meet with individual employees and ask them job related questions such
as their job expectation, job situation, interest, problems, etc. Interview can be taken
by preparing structured questions or with random questions. After completing
interview of related employees, a report is prepared and submitted to management
for necessary decision. However, this method is more time consuming process and in
some cases it may create conflict or misunderstanding due to misleading translation
of employees view.
Action tendencies: In action tendencies, researchers measure job satisfaction of
employees by focusing their inclination, interest and preference. In this research
employees' preference for working pattern, working situation, department, branch,
location, and specific event during course of working are taken into consideration for
measuring job satisfaction. Here, researchers analyze employee's tendency of
avoiding or accepting certain thing relating to the job. On the basis of employees'
inclination on job requirement, researchers identify the level of their job satisfaction
or dissatisfaction.

Critical incidents: This approach is based on Herzberg's two-factor theory of

motivation. Here, researchers are asked employees to identify the specific events,
incidents or situations on their jobs in which they were mostly satisfied. Such
incidents are further analyzed to ascertain the aspects which were closely related to
positive attitudes of the employees. However, in this research there is no any
provision of scaling the opinion of employees. Therefore, in this method there is
possibility of perceptual biasness.
 EFFECTS OF JOB SATISFACTION ON EMPLOYEES'
PERFORMANCE
Job satisfaction is an employee's overall attitude of liking and disliking of the job. Managers are concerned
about the consequences of job satisfaction for employee behaviour. The effect of job satisfaction on
employees' performance is studied in the following perspectives:
Prodctivity
Absenteeism
Employee turnover
Organizational citizenship
1. Job Satisfaction and Productivity:
The productivity is concerned with maximization of output, business turnover, profit and wealth of the
organization. It focuses for the best utilization of organizational resources including manpower. The best use of
human resource facilitates for proper mobilization of other physical resources consisting of materials,
machines and money. It contributes for the development of working efficiency of the organization which
provides positive impact on its productivity
2. Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism:
Absenteeism is the failure to report the progress of work to the management on time. There is negative
correlation between job satisfaction and absenteeism. When job satisfaction level is high, absenteeism tend to
be low. In such situation employees give importance to their job. Similarly, when job satisfaction level is low,
absenteeism tend to be high.
3. Job Satisfaction and Employee Turnover:
Turnover is the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal of employees from an organization. In
other words, it is the process of joining new employees in the organization and leaving old employees. There
is negative correlation between job satisfaction and employee turnover. When job satisfaction level is high,
turnover trend of employees tend to be low. In such situation employees give importance to their job.
Similarly, when job satisfaction level is low, turnover trend of employees tend to be high.

4. Job Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship:

Organizational citizenship is the development of feeling of belongingness and membership among the
employees in the organization. It is discretionary behaviour that is not a part of an employee’s formal job
requirement. There is positive correlation between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship. Satisfied
employees devote their duties according to their best of ability.