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PERSONALITY AFFECTS ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

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Introduction
In the 21st century, one of the most critical topical issues in the study of organizational
behavior is the effects of workforce diversity such as personality on organizational
performance. In todays global and competitive environment, the general consensus is
that organizations that capitalize on diversity are likely to perform better than
organizations without the advantages that diversity brings. Workforce diversity refers to
employees individual differences and similarities. It stands for individuality that includes
personality, gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, region, sexual orientation, income,
marital status, work experience and perceptions that uphold organizational core values.
Personality encompasses a persons relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and
behavioral patterns. Each of us has a unique personality that differentiates us from
other people, and understanding someones personality gives us clues about how that
person is likely to act and feel in a variety of situations. To manage effectively, it is
helpful to understand the personalities of different employees. Having this knowledge is
also useful for placing people into jobs and organizations.
On the other hand, organizational performance can be defined as when an
organization meets its set targets putting into consideration all other personality,
external and internal dimensions that influence performance.
The quality of the relationships employees have with each other determines the quality
of the work outcomes. Personality of employees effects their roles and responsibilities in
the organization. However, personality match between employee/employer has a strong
impact on the interaction and communication patterns of the employees, as well as the
subjective experiences of individuals which results in different forms of organizational
integration and also in managing the interrelationships synergistically. On the other
hand, every good employee that an organization fails to retain, walks out the door
costing the business money, every poor or mismatched recruit can result in missed
opportunities and can severely damage your culture and organizational reputation.

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Our paper is about how personalities matter in work environments and ultimately results
in superior organizational performance. Too much difference among personalities at the
work place creates difficulty in retaining employees. Mismatch can cause coordination
problems. While matching personalities complement each other which lead to
motivation at work place. We propose that personality match leads to positive attitudes.
Furthermore, it creates emotional alignment at employee level, which contributes to
increased organizational performance; develops emotional integration and a deep
collaborative culture. Once all these factors are established the whole organization
creates fit or connectedness which of course complements other aspects of emotional
integration, collaborative culture and positive attitudinal alignment.
For our report, we have chosen Grameenphone which is widely known as GP. It is the
leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. With more than 40.33
million subscribers (as of January 2013),Grameenphone is the largest mobile phone
operator in the country. It is a joint venture enterprise between Telenor and Grameen
Telecom

Corporation,

non-profit

sister

concern

of

the

internationally

acclaimed microfinance organization and community development bank Grameen Bank.


Telenor, the largest telecommunications company in Norway, owns 55.8% shares of
Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly
held.
Grameenphone was the first company to introduce GSM technology in Bangladesh. It
also established the first 24-hour Call Center to support its subscribers. With the
slogan Go Beyond, Grameenphone promises its customers to bring the best of
communication technologies so that they can Go Beyond.
Grameenphone received a license for cellular phone operation in Bangladesh from the
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications on November 28, 1996. Grameenphone
started operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day in Bangladesh.

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Conceptual Framework
Objective of the study
This paper is designed with the following objectives:

Identify the meaning of personality and organizational performance

Identify the relation between personality and organizational performance

Scope of the study


All the information which are going to be used in this paper is kind of perspective based
and judgmental. As a result the overall scope of this report can be divided into two
different categories which are broad and narrow perspective.

Broad Scope: The broad scope or perspective will contain the personality.

Narrow Scope: The narrow perspective will contain the affects of personality on
organizational performance

Methodology
This paper is entirely objected toward finding out whether personality affects
organizational performance or not and as a result to get all the information, qualitative
research is the most suitable approach. This qualitative research is consists of following
two methods:

PRIMARY RESEARCH

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Primary Research:
With a view to conduct a primary research, a self-administrated questionnaire survey
has been carried out to interview employees of Grameenphone. The collected data are
then analysed in comparison to researches related to this issue.
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Secondary Research:
For conducting the secondary research and for collecting secondary data, rigorous
research has done through several internet articles, websites, and journals. Secondary
data basically supported the primary findings to some extent.

Since, the overall findings are totally resulted from the primary data; secondary data
have very little impact on it.

Literature Review
According to Kinicki, (2008), personality represents a stable set of characteristics that
are responsible for a persons identity. The internal dimension or the primary
dimensions of diversity are mostly outside our control but strongly influence our
attitudes and our expectations and assumptions about others, thus influencing our
behavior.
Organizational performance can be defined as when an organization meets its set
targets putting into consideration all other personality, external and internal dimensions
that influence performance (Kreitner&Kinicki, 2007).
Colquitt (2009) defines personality traits as the structures and propensities inside a
person that explains his or her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior.
Personality captures what people are like, in contrast to ability which captures what
people can do.
Corporate organizations are generally concerned with their performance which creates
a competitive strategic advantage in differentiating themselves from other firms and to
enhance the firms general output (Kreitner&Kinicki, 2007).
Openness has to do with curious, imaginative, creative, complex, refined, sophisticated
while extraversion is associated with adjective traits such as talkative, sociable,
passionate, bold, dominant (Colquitt, 2009).
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Personality therefore represents a process of change and it relates to the psychological


growth and development of individuals. Personality factors are extremely important in
today's competitive organizational settings. Often the 'wrong' kind of personality proves
disastrous and causes undesirable tensions and worries in organization (Khosla, 2009).
However, while strong evidence supports the relationship between personality and
performance, the small magnitude of the relationship has caused some researchers to
question the actual utility of personality for predicting work performance (Hurtz&
Donovan, 2000).
Corporate organizations are generally concerned with their performance which creates
a competitive strategic advantage in differentiating themselves from other firms and to
enhance the firms general output (Kreitner&Kinicki, 2007).
Individual performance levels are a function of ones motivation and total job capability
and therefore when both are high, performance will tend to be generally, high, though
an individuals total job capability is a function of general job knowledge and specific job
skills (Wagner & Hollenbeck, 1998).
Tett et al. (1999) suggested that personality can contribute to three levels of person-job
fit. Task-level fit occurs with respect to the immediate activities, goals,
and duties that define a given job; group-level fit denotes a matching of the person to
his or her coworkers; and organization-level fit results when a person's traits match the
organization's culture. All these three aspects are also complementary as group
cohesiveness depends on how well you interact and the
interaction further depends on how well your personality matches thus creating an
overall environment of mutual understanding.

Main Analysis
The workplace brings together people from different backgrounds, philosophies,
cultures and personalities. Diverse workplaces can encourage cooperation, teamwork
and creative thinking. Personality differences can mean that individuals take varying
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approaches to work style and interacting with other employees, managers, clients and
competitors. Understanding how personality affects behavior in the workplace can help
determine what might be motivating workers to perform or behave in certain ways.

Motivation
Different personalities might affect what motivates people to participate in the
workplace. Creative personalities see the workplace as a place to experiment with new
ideas, achieve different solutions or incorporate artistic elements into products.
Communicators may be motivated to discuss and debate business decisions. People
with compassionate-focused personalities may view their work as serving humanity or
making the world a better place. Competitive employees may view the workplace as an
arena where they hope to beat out others to demonstrate their ability. Although
motivations may reflect a mixture of several work-related goals, playing to people's
strengths can boost motivation and result in better products and services. For example,
assigning a competitive type employee the task of developing a campaign to beat out
your primary competitor might be successful.

Interpersonal Relations
Personalities also affect workplace behavior when it comes to interpersonal relations.
One common personality model includes the "Type A" and "Type B" personality types.
Type A personalities tend to do things quickly, feel rushed, and may be angry or hostile.
Type B personalities take a more relaxed approach, completing one thing at a time and
expressing their feelings. In some ways, personality differences can facilitate
interpersonal relations. People might enjoy interacting with individuals whose
personalities complement their own. But personality differences can cause problems.
Type A personalities might appear overbearing to Type B personalities, causing friction.
Type B personalities might seem too emotional to Type A personalities.

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Work Ethics
Personality can also influence work ethic in the workplace. For example, someone with
a free-wheeling, fun-loving personality may struggle to buckle down, meet deadlines or
be a shrewd negotiator when discussing contracts. Employers should take care to
establish strong principles to guide work ethic choices in the workplace no matter what
personality types are employed. For example, some people might think it's perfectly fine
to take office pens and notepads home for personal use because they're generous with
their own resources in the workplace.

Self-Assessment
Some people naturally assess their own performance in the workplace, setting goals
and identifying areas for improvement. Others may focus on the task at hand, not
reflecting on the past or planning for the future. Self-assessment can be a valuable tool
for improving abilities. Employers may offer training and workshops to help employees
better understand their strengths and weaknesses in the workplace.

Do individuals personality traits affect performance?


Do personality traits affect performance? Such question is always relevant. Every
rational employer is constantly looking for highly effective and productive individuals. At
this point, personality can have implications not only on an individual performance level
but also on a team level. Individual and collective dimensions are relevant because
currently employees tend to combine both types, individual work and team work in their
organizations. As per the rules and regulations of Grameenphone, every single
individual has a target which is done by solely the individual but by working in a team.
Therefore, the team bonding is obviously necessary to accomplish the goals. Here
personality of various kinds of different people is not expected to be the same. We
studied how the conflicts of interest can be resolved and how personality traits affect the
performance for the employees of Grameenphone.

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Personality traits affect performance?


In order to drive discussion on this question we first need to understand what
personality is and what are the different traits that individuals personality have? It is
possible to define personality as those set of traits that characterize an individual.
Personality can be influenced by biological, cultural and life events and virtually all
personality measures can be condensed into the 5-factor model of personality factors
(Big Five).

5-factor model of personality factors (Big Five)

Emotional stability: It resembles the degree to which an individual can be


anxious, depressed, angry, and generally emotionally insecure.

Extroversion: It resembles the degree to which a person can be sociable,


talkative, assertive, active, and ambitious and is able to openly express feelings
and emotions.

Openness to experience: It resembles the degree to which an individual can


be open to experience, is intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive
to beauty.

Agreeableness: It resembles the extent to which a person can be courteous,


good natured, flexible, trusting, and liked by others.

Conscientiousness: It resembles the degree to which a person can be


dependable, responsible, organized, and a planner.

Why this is relevant? Because, as studied by scholars and compared with the internal
environment of GP, these five traits can have a direct impact on what we can expect
from the employee:

Emotional stability: It involves less negative thinking and fewer negative emotions.
This leads to higher job satisfaction and lower stress levels. As per this survey we
have come to a conclusion indicating if the temper of an individual employee is very
high for a certain reason or if the employee has not been given with the casual or
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unplanned leave rather than the privileged or planned leave that an employee
deserves is not supposed to act accordingly for achieving the goals set by the
organization. Emotional stability is highly important for the managers to understand
to make them motivated. For an example, if any employee has to attend any function
or program which was totally not previously informed and he/she seeks for a leave
but is not granted by his/her superior then the impact of the service level drastically
falls down. Therefore, it is a big matter to understand the needs or demands of the
subordinates to make their performance better. Every individuals target is linked up
with his/her superiors and then onwards. In grameenphone a deputy general
managers targets depend on the managers targets. Again the managers target is
the target of all executives and senior executives. Tendency to fall one individuals
target means everyones target is missed.

Extroversion: It is usually linked to better interpersonal skills, greater social


dominance and making the individual more emotionally expressive. This leads to
higher

performance,

enhanced

leadership

and

higher

job

satisfaction.

Grameenphone does not believe in very traditional working environment. The


company gives full enjoyment of a very modern and friendly corporate
environment. Targets are always set for single individual but it has to be done
with the help of a team. Those people who are very skilled in communication can
better survive.

Openness: It is associated with increased interest towards learning, more


creativity and more flexibility and autonomy of the individual. This turns into
higher training performance, enhanced leadership and makes the individual more
adaptable to change. As grameenphone believes in open-desk system which
means there should not be any separate cabins for the managers or deputy
general managers. Therefore, getting in touch with the superiors face to face is
just a matter of a second to see it done. Internal communication is very
imperative to make the performance of employees from better to the best. So
that, it adds further value if no supremacy complex arises between superiors and
inferiors within the working place by the help of friendly relationships.

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Agreeableness: It involves the individual being more compliant and conforming. This
turns into higher performance and lower levels of deviant behavior. As
Grameenphone does not believe in addressing the superiors as sir/maam rather
they are addressed as brother/sister by their subordinates, it automatically makes
everyone very friendly to cope up with the environment. A corporate environment is
indefinitely a complete new thing for a new comer. If he/she is always advised to be
fearful or afraid of his/her superiors then the performance may affect. One of the
employees of Grameenphone mentioned that the friendly relationship between the
boss and employee makes them always motivated to work peacefully. Even if this is
the case for asking questions to the superior, some people avoid the tendency to do
knowledge sharing as they do not like to face their superiors in many organizations.
But the friendly environment makes every single employee of GP to take it easy as
one of the core values of GP.

Finally, conscientiousness: It is usually reflected in greater effort and persistence,


more drive and discipline and better organization and planning. This leads to higher
performance, enhanced leadership and greater longevity of the individual in the
organization. GP always believes in team work though everybody has to meet the
targets alone. Without the help of a team it is never possible for a person to achieve
the goal. Everyday each single employee has to complete his/her KPI. Then all this
sums up as an average of the entire month. Therefore, this is not a company for only
the careful/cautious ones. This method is indeed making them motivated every
single day.

Findings
From the literature review, the idea reveals that the performance of employees is an
effect of the personality of the employees. Actually, personalitys effect on performance
is mediated by motivation. Personality is accounted for unique variance in performance.
And employers are likely to motivate their employee's personality for achieving the
organizational goals set. Therefore it is critical to monitor the individual rather than a
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team. We study on the workforce of Grameen phone which is a leading telecom


company in Bangladesh. In Grameen phone individual has to complete their objectives
alone within a team. Ones responsibility binds to another. So the team member looks
for each other. For this type of workforce motivation is essential.

Our study was a

qualitative based research. This research has compared to the theory of big five model
of personality to find the degree of motivation which in turn affects performance. In
analysis it is shown that conscientiousness and emotional stability are the best
personality predictors and motivators of job performance for the employee of this
particular organization. Extraversion and agreeableness are important to keep the work
place friendly helpful and conforming. About the openness to experience, it focuses on
various type of training and especially open desk system to keep a friendly relationship
within employees.
According to the research, Grameen phone workforce exhibited all the big five
personality traits namely: Emotional stability, Extroversion, openness, agreeableness
and conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is associated with dependability, organized,
reliability, sympathetic and warm. emotional stability is moody, nervous, emotional
insecure and unstable while openness to experience have curious, imaginative, creative
and complex, extraversion are talkative, sociable, passionate, bold and dominant. From
the analysis we also find agreeableness is also play role as improvise the idea to handle
any critical situation. Due to interpersonal aspect of agreeableness, agreeable
employees are more likely to have relationship with others. As with extraverts,
agreeable employees are likely to have stronger ties to co-workers. These relationships
are connected to constituent motivational forces and the concept of job embeddings
which motivate individuals to stay with their organizations because of these
interpersonal relationships. While extraversion is defined as positivity, emotional stability
is associated with negative activity in terms of general performance of an employee.
Although, specific personality traits like conscientiousness, have been linked to a variety
of employee outcomes. It is possible that personality is primarily expressed in individual
preferences for work environments and that has the direct effects of personality on
workplace outcomes are fully or partially mediated by such performance.

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Recommendations
According to the primary data, we can say that GP maintain a good work place
environment. Though people can face some problems for example Introvert people can
face problems in GP as they have to work in group to achieve their goal. It isnt possible
to build an work force with same personality ,difference is inevitable in this kind of
organization as they have large number employee. As GP has low power distance its
easy for a subordinate to get closer with their manager which can result biasness. Its
possible that an employee is less friendly and introvert which can result distance
between his or her coworker but its possible that his or her work performance is
satisfactory. Because of not being close with their manager they can suffer from
biasness which can cause undermined their performance. So GP has to take good care
of this situation otherwise employees can get less motivated.

Limitations
1. GP has a lot of employee where we cannot access available information
about our selected topics because of the permission of the GP.
2. Limited knowledge of organizational overview and behaviour prevented
me from presenting a more detailed report.
3. The secondary qualitative data are only depends on different websites. Latest
research materials of this particular research are not that available.

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Conclusion
Thus we conclude that personality affects organizations performance a lot. Its not easy
to build a workforce with same personality but organizations can make a work
environment which can make those differences to go away like Grameen Phone and
achieve their goals. From the Informations above we can say that GPs environment
and policy help their employees to shape their personalities to achieve GPs Goal.
Policys like open desk communication can help employees to solve their problem and
express their ideas with their supervisors which can increase the team work and ideas
to achieve more prosperity. Sometime personalities can prevent employees to work as
a team which can create problem to achieve goals but in the case of GP their policy
force their employees to work as a team which is a good thing. So we can say that
personality is an important aspect of organizational performance and organizations
should think about personality difference of employees before creating workforce and
work environment.

Further Research Options


This paper helps identify the association between personality and organizational
performance; to sustain in this competitive market, which is very important. Further
research can be done on how personality may differ in different working environment.

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References
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Colquitt, J, Le-Pine, J, & Wesson, M. (2009).Organizational Behavior; improving


performance and commitment in the workplace, New York, McGraw-Hill, Irwin.

Hurtz, G.M., & Donovan, J.J. (2000). Personality and job performance: The Big Five
revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, (85), 869-879.
Kreitner R, Kinicki A (2007). Organizational Behavior(ed), N.Y., McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Wagner, J.A, & Hollenbeck J.R. (1998).Organizational Behavior; Securing Competitive


Advantage, (ed), New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

Tett, R., P., & Murphy, P., J., (2002). Personality and Situations in Co-Worker
Preference: Similarity and Complementarity in Worker Compatibility. Journal of
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Smith, A., M., &Canger, J., (2004).Effects of Supervisor "Big Five" Personality on
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Parkinson, J., &Taggar, S., (2006).Intelligence,Personality and Performance on Case


Studies. Journal of Business and Psychology, 20(3), pp. 395-408.

Crant, M., & Bateman, T., S., (2000).Charismatic Leadership Viewed from above: The
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