Is the collection of feelings and beliefs that managers have about their organization as a whole?

Just for you: FREE 60-day trial to the world’s largest digital library.

The SlideShare family just got bigger. Enjoy access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more from Scribd.

Read free for 60 days

Cancel anytime.

Chapter 2: Values, Attitudes, Emotions, and Culture: The Manager as a Person

I. ENDURING CHARACTERISTICS: PERSONALITY TRAITS

A. Personality traits are enduring tendencies to feel, think, and act in certain ways. It is important to understand a manager’s personality because it influences his or her behavior and approach to management.

B. The Big Five is a group of five general traits that contribute to the composition of an individual’s personality. Each trait should be evaluated along a continuum.

1. Extraversion is the tendency to experience positive emotions and moods expressed by affectionate, outgoing, and friendly demeanor.

a. Being high on this trait can be an asset for managers whose jobs entail an especially high level of social interaction. Those low on this factor can be highly effective if excessive social interaction is not required by their job.

2. Negative Affectivity is the tendency to experience negative emotions and moods, feel distressed, and be critical of others.

a. Managers high on this trait may often feel angry and dissatisfied and complain about their own and others’ lack of progress. Those who are low on negative affectivity do not tend to experience many negative emotions and are less pessimistic and critical of themselves and others. See Figure 3.3 for a measure of Negative Affectivity.

3. Agreeableness is the tendency to get along well with others.

a. Managers high on this continuum are likeable, tend to be affectionate, and care about other people. Those who are low may be somewhat distrustful of others, unsympathetic, uncooperative, and even at times antagonistic. See Figure 3.2 for a measure of this.

4. Conscientiousness is the tendency to be careful, scrupulous, and persevering.

a. Managers who are high on this factor are organized and self-disciplined, while those who are low may seem to lack self-direction and self-discipline.

5. Openness to experience is the tendency to be original, have broad interests, be open to a wide range of stimuli, be daring, and take risks.

a. Those high on this trait continuum like to take risks and sometimes choose to become an entrepreneur, while those low on this scale tend to be more conservative in their planning and decision making.

C. Other Personality Traits that Affect Managerial Behavior

1. The locus of control trait captures an individual’s beliefs concerning the amount of control he or she has over what happens to and around him or her.

a. People with an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for their own fate and see their own actions and behaviors as being important and decisive determinants of future outcomes.

b. People with an external locus of control believe that outside forces are responsible for what happens to and around them and that their own actions don’t make much of a difference.

2. Self-Esteem is the degree to which people feel good about themselves and their capabilities.

3. Needs for achievement, affiliation, and power have been extensively researched by psychologist David McClelland.

a. The need for achievement is the extent to which an individual has a strong desire to perform challenging tasks well and to meet personal standards for excellence.

b. The need for affiliation is the extent to which an individual is concerned about establishing and maintaining good interpersonal relations, being liked, and getting along with other people.

c. The need for power is the extent to which an individual desires to control or influence others.

II. VALUES, ATTITUDES, AND MOODS AND EMOTIONS

 A. Terminal and Instrumental Values

A terminal value is a personal conviction about lifelong goals or objectives, while an instrumental value is a personal conviction about desired modes of conduct or ways of behaving.

1. Terminal values often lead to the formation of norms, which are informal rules of conduct for behaviors considered to be important within an organization.

2. A leading researcher identified 18 terminal values and 18 instrumental values that, when placed in rank order, will describe a person’s value system. See Figure 2.4.

B. Attitudes

An attitude is a collection of feelings and beliefs. A manager’s attitude affects how he or she approaches his or her job. Two of the most important attitudes in this context are the following:

1. Job Satisfaction is the collection of feelings and beliefs that managers have about their current job. See Figure 2.5 for sample items from two measures of job satisfaction.

a. Managers who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to perform organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).

b. OCBs are behaviors that are not required but contribute to organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and gaining a competitive advantage

c. A growing source of dissatisfaction for many lower and middle-level managers and employees is the threat of unemployment and increased workloads from downsizing.

d. The ways in which layoffs are handled is important for both layoff victims and survivors.

2. Organizational commitment is the collection of feelings and beliefs that managers have about their organization as a whole. See Figure 3.5 for a measure of organizational commitment. With organizational commitment, managers

a. Believe in what their organizations are doing

b. Are proud of what the organization stands for

c. Feel a high degree of loyalty toward their organizations

• Organizational commitment is likely to help managers perform some of their figurehead and spokesperson roles.
• Organizational commitment may depend on legislation that helps insure job security.

C. Moods and Emotions

1. Mood: A mood is a feeling or state of mind

Personality traits and current circumstances often determine a person’s mood. See Figure 2.7 for a measure of positive and negative mood at work

2.Emotions: Emotions are more intense than moods, are more short-lived, and are usually linked to a specific cause.

a. Research has found that moods and emotions affect the behavior of all members of an organization, including managers.

b. Mood and emotions may impact ethical decision making.

c. Research also indicates that sometimes a negative mood can be beneficial. Some studies suggest that critical thinking and devil’s advocacy may be promoted by a negative mood.

III. Emotional Intelligence (EI)

A. Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s own moods and emotions, as well as the moods and emotions of others.

1. Managers with high levels of EI are able to prevent their emotions from getting in the way of making effective decisions.

2. EI helps managers perform the interpersonal roles of figurehead, leader, and liaison.

3. Emotional intelligence helps managers understand and relate well to other people.

4. See Figure 2.8 for a measure of Emotional Intelligence.

IV. Organizational Culture

A. Organizational culture describes the set of beliefs, expectations, values, norms, and work routines that influence how members of an organization relate to each other and work together to achieve organizational goals.

1. When members share an intense commitment to goals, a strong organizational culture exists. When the opposite is true, the organization’s culture is weak.

2. When an organization’s culture is very strong, it is often referred to as the organization’s ‘personality’ because it influences the way its members behave.

 B. Managers and Organizational Culture

1. Managers play a particularly important part in influencing organizational culture. This is most evident in the start-up of new companies

2. Management researcher Benjamin Schneider developed a model called the Attraction-Socialization-Attrition (ASA), which posits that entrepreneurs tend to hire employees whose personalities are similar to their own.

C. The Role of Values and Norms in Organizational Culture

Shared values, as well as shared norms, play a particularly important role in organizational culture. The types of values and norms that managers promote within an organization determine and shape its culture.

1. Values of the founder: From the ASA model previously discussed, it is clear that founders can have a profound and long-lasting effect on organizational culture.

 2. Organizational socialization: This is the process by which newcomers learn an organization’s values and norms and acquire the work behaviors necessary to perform jobs effectively. As a result, organizational values and norms are internalized.

 3. Ceremonies and rites: These are formal events that recognize incidents of importance to the organization as a whole and to specific employees. The most common rites that organizations use to transmit cultural norms and values to their members are rites of passage of integration and/or enhancement. See Table 2.1 for examples of the rites listed below.

a. Rites of passage determine how individuals enter, advance within, or leave an organization.

b. Rites of integration build and reinforce common bonds among organizational members.

c. Rites of enhancement let organizations publicly recognize and reward employee contributions, thus strengthening their commitment to organizational values.

4. Stories and language: Stories frequently told within an organization, either fact or fiction, provide important clues about values and norms. The slang or jargon that people within an organization use to frame and describe events also provides important clues about norms and values.

D. Culture and Managerial Action

Culture influences the way in which managers perform their four main functions.

1. Planning: In an innovative organizational culture, top managers are likely to develop a flexible approach to planning and to encourage participation by subordinates. In contrast, managers in a conservative organizational culture are likely to emphasize top-down planning.

2. Organizing: Because they value creativity, managers in an innovative culture are likely to create an organic structure that is flat and in which authority is decentralized. In contrast, managers in a conservative culture are likely to create a well-defined hierarchy of authority and establish clear reporting relationships.

3. Leading: In an innovative culture, managers are likely to lead by example, encourage employees to take risks and experiment, and to be supportive regardless of success or failure. In a conservative culture, managers are likely to use management by objectives (MBO), constantly monitor progress toward goals, and oversee their employees’ every move.

4. Controlling: Managers in innovative cultures tend to recognize that there are multiple, potential paths to success, and that failure must be accepted in order for creativity to thrive. Therefore, managers are more concerned that employees be flexible and take risks and less concerned about their adherence to pre-determined routines and goals. In contrast, managers in more conservative cultures emphasize caution and maintenance of the status quo.

Jones and George, Essentials of Contemporary Management, 4e

What values guide how an organization and its members achieve organizational goals multiple choice question?

What is true about managers who are low on openness to experience quizlet?

Which term refers to the ability to understand and manage one's own moods and emotions and those of other people?

When people belong to the same organization they tend to share certain beliefs expectations and Valuess that lead to one another this is known as ?