Chapter 14   Understanding Individual Behavior

Have you ever wondered why the people around you are behaving the way they are? People differ in their behaviors, and even the same person can behave one way one day and a completely different way another day. Managers need to understand individual behavior. Focus on the following learning outcomes as you read and study this chapter.

LEARNING OUTCOMES 

14.1 Identify the focus and goals of organizational behavior.
14.2 Explain the role that attitudes play in job performance.
14.3 Describe different personality theories.
14.4 Describe perception and factors that influence it.
14.5 Discuss learning theories and their relevance in shaping behavior.
14.6 Discuss contemporary issues in organizational behavior.

A MANAGER’S DILEMMA 

In their study of Chapter 14, students will have an opportunity to learn fundamental information about individual and group behavior in the workplace. This chapter explores topics related to the behavior of individuals at work including attitudes, personality, perception, learning, and motivation. Students will look at dynamics of group behavior that encompass norms, roles, team building, leadership, and conflict resolution. In exploring these dimensions of organizational behavior, the text lays the foundation for understanding how and why people behave the way they do within the organization’s environment.

In “A Manager’s Dilemma,” students read about the challenges facing HCL Technologies CEO, Vineet Nayar.  As part of HCL’s “employee first” philosophy, the company implemented a no layoff policy during an economic downturn.  After things improved, HCL employees began looking at competitors’ job offers. During the first quarter of 2010, HCL lost 22 percent of its workforce.

While it may appear that HCL is doing what it takes to retain its employees, there appears to be an issue with employee satisfaction.  Students are asked what they would do in Mr. Nayar’s position.  An important first step would be an employee survey to determine how employees feel about the company, its culture, and its policies. It should be determined how employees perceive the company’s no layoff policy.  Is could be possible that employees don’t see the value in a company’s promise not to lay them off if they don’t value the job they have with the company.  It’s also possible that employees are leaving for a variety of reasons, such as more pay or better benefits. 

CHAPTER OUTLINE 

INTRODUCTION
 This chapter examines numerous factors that influence employee behavior and their implications for managers.

14.1 FOCUS AND GOALS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
 Organizational behavior is the study of how people act at work. The visible organization can be described as the tip of an iceberg; many of the important issues involved in understanding OB are not easily observed. (See Exhibit 14-
A. Focus of Organizational Behavior. Organizational behavior focuses on two major areas:
1. Individual behavior
2. Group behavior
B. The goals of OB are to explain, predict, and influence behavior. Six important behaviors have been identified from for the study of OB: employee productivity, absenteeism, turnover, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), job satisfaction, and workplace misbehavior.
14.2. ATTITUDES AND JOB PERFORMANCE
 Attitudes are defined as evaluative statements—favorable or unfavorable— concerning objects, people, or events.  Attitudes have three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral.
1. The cognitive component of an attitude is the part of an attitude that is made up of the beliefs, opinions, knowledge, or information held by a person.
2. The affective component of an attitude is that part of an attitude that is the emotional, or feeling, part.
3. The behavioral component of an attitude is that part of an attitude that refers to an intention to behave in a certain way.
Managers are particularly interested in the job-related attitudes of employees.
Job-related attitudes include job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational
commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior.
A. Job Satisfaction.  Job Satisfaction is defined as an employee’s general attitude toward his or her job.
1.  In general, US workers report that they are satisfied with their job; however, this number has been declining since the 1995.  The degree of job satisfaction has been linked to income, but is probably influenced more by the type of job an employee performs.
2.  Following the Hawthorne Studies, many managers believed that if they kept their employees happy, the employees would be productive.  Current studies show a fairly strong relationship between satisfaction and performance.
3. Research on job attitudes shows a strong negative relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. 
4. The strongest variable related to job satisfaction is turnover.
5. Job satisfaction has been linked to customer satisfaction, but a converse relationship has also been found to be true, customer dissatisfaction has been related to an employee’s job satisfaction.
6. Organizational citizenship behavior is the discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, but promotes the effective functioning of the organization. While it is obvious that job satisfaction is related to organizational citizenship behavior, other variables such as fairness and the type of citizenship behavior play a role in the relationship.
7. While it is difficult to predict how employees will respond, managers need to be aware that dissatisfied employees may engage in misbehavior or violence at work.
B. Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment. Job involvement is the degree to which an employee identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it, and considers his or her job performance important to his or her self-worth. Organizational commitment is an employee’s orientation toward the organization in terms of his or her loyalty to, identification with, and involvement in the organization.
C. Employee Engagement.  Highly engaged employees are passionate about and deeply connected to their work. Disengaged employees have essentially “checked out” and don’t care. Exhibit 14–2 lists the key engagement factors
D. Attitudes and Consistency. Research has generally shown that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior.
E. Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Cognitive dissonance refers to any inconsistency that an individual might perceive between attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.
1. Dissonance or inconsistency leads to an uncomfortable state for the individual, who will try to reduce the inconsistency.
2. The desire to reduce dissonance is determined by (a) the importance of the factors creating the dissonance, (b) the degree of influence the individual believes he/she has over those factors, and (c) the rewards that may be involved in dissonance.
3. Individuals reduce dissonance either by changing the behavior, concluding that the dissonant behavior is not so important after all, by changing the attitude or by identifying compatible factors that outweigh the dissonant ones.
E. Attitude surveys. Companies often use surveys to ask employees how they feel about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, or the organization. Exhibit 14-3 provides a sample of an attitude survey.
F. Implications for Managers. A controversy exists concerning the relationship between satisfaction and productivity. Are happy workers productive workers?
1. Following the Hawthorne Studies, many managers believed that if they kept their employees happy, the employees would be productive.
2. A review of the research on worker productivity indicates that if satisfaction does have a positive effect on productivity, that effect is fairly small.
3. Rather, managers should focus on factors that are conducive to a high degree of employee satisfaction. Such factors include mentally challenging work, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, and supportive colleagues.
4. The implication for managers from understanding attitudes is that there is relatively strong evidence that committed and satisfied employees have lower rates of turnover and absenteeism. Also, the belief that making employees happy will make them productive needs to be reexamined.
LEADERS WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has a stellar reputation in the fiercely competitive commercial aviation business. Chew Choon Seng, has helped to create a culture where employees excel and passengers appreciate the outstanding customer service.  How does SIA build a positive culture?   SIA carefully selects people who are warm, hospitable, and happy to serve others. All employees—from bottom to top—are very proud to be part of the SIA family.

14.3 PERSONALITY
 Personality is defined is the unique combination of emotional, thought, and behavioral patterns that affect how a person reacts and interacts with others.

A. MBTI. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) is a general personality assessment.  The MBTI® measures four dimensions:
1. Social interaction: extrovert (E) or introvert (I)
2. Preference for gathering data: sensing (S) or intuitive (N)
3. Preference for decision making: feeling (F) or thinking (T)
4. Style of making decisions: perceptive (P) or judgmental (J)
Combining these preferences provides descriptions about 16 different personality types. Examples of MBTI® personality types are shown in Exhibit 14-4.
B. The Big Five Model. The Big-Five Model is a five-factor model of personality.
1. Research has shown that important relationships exist between these personality dimensions and job performance.
2. The personality traits in the Big-Five Model are listed below:
a. Extraversion
b. Agreeableness
c. Conscientiousness
d. Emotional Stability
e. Openness to Experience
C. Additional Personality Insights. Personality researchers have identified five additional personality traits that have proved to be the most powerful in explaining individual behavior in organizations: locus of control, Machiavellianism, self-esteem, self-monitoring, and risk-taking.
1. Locus of control is the degree to which people believe they control their own fate. Locus of control can be either external or internal.
2. Machiavellianism is the degree to which people are pragmatic, maintain emotional distance, and believe that ends justify means.
3. Self-esteem is an individual’s degree of like or dislike for himself or herself.
4. Self-monitoring is an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external situational factors.
5. Risk-taking refers to an individual’s willingness to take risks.
D. Personality Types in Different Cultures. Do these personality types transfer across cultures? Although no common personality types are found in a given national culture a country’s culture can influence dominant personality characteristics of its people. This is particularly true for the personality trait, locus of control.
E. Emotions and Emotional Intelligence.  Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to notice and to manage emotional cues and information.
1. Emotional intelligence is composed of five dimensions:
a. Self-awareness
b. Self-management
c. Self-motivation
d. Empathy
e. Social skills
2. Research has shown that emotional intelligence is positively related to job performance at all organizational levels.
F. Implications for Managers. The benefit of a manager’s understanding personality differences is clearly seen in the area of employee selection. Just as individual personalities differ, so too do jobs. Efforts have been made to match the proper personalities with the proper jobs.
1. John Holland has developed the best-documented personality-job fit theory (see Exhibit 14-5).
2. The key points of his model:  Intrinsic differences in personality probably do exist among individuals; there are different types of jobs; and people who work in job environments congruent with their personality types should be more satisfied.
14.4 PERCEPTION
Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory impressions in order to give meaning to the environment.
A. Factors that influence perception.  A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception:
1. The perceiver
2. The target (See Exhibit 14-6)
3. The situation
B. Attribution theory is a theory that explains how we judge people differently depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior. The determination of the cause of the behavior depends on three factors: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
1. Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behavior in different situations.
2. Consensus refers to whether an individual who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way with the same behavior.
3. Consistency refers to the congruency in a person’s actions, that is, whether the person engages in the behaviors regularly and consistently.
4. Exhibit 14-7 summarize the key elements of attribution theory.
5. One of the most interesting findings of attribution theory is that there are errors or biases that distort attributions.
a. The fundamental attribution error refers to the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others.
b. Self-serving bias is the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors.
C. Shortcuts We Use In Judging Others.
1. Assumed similarity is the belief that others are like oneself.
2. Stereotyping refers to judging a person on the basis of one’s perception of a group to which he or she belongs.
3. Halo effect refers to a general impression of an individual based on a single characteristic.
D. The Implication For Managers.   Managers need to recognize that their employees react to perceptions, not reality. Management is also not immune to biases and can negatively impact employees’ perception of fairness with inaccurate appraisals or setting discriminatory wage levels.

14.5 LEARNING
 Learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
A. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment.
1. B. F. Skinner is the psychologist most often associated with operant conditioning theory.
2. Operant conditioning theory proposes that behavior is determined from without (that is, learned) rather than from within (reflexive, or unlearned).
3. Skinner argued that creating pleasing and desirable consequences to follow some specific behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior.
4. People will most likely engage in desired behaviors if they receive positive reinforcement for doing so.
B. Social learning is a learning theory that says people learn through observation and direct experience. Four processes determine the amount of influence that these models will have on an individual: attentional processes, retention processes, motor reproduction processes, and reinforcement processes.
1. Attentional processes. People learn from a model only when they recognize and pay attention to its critical features.
2. Retention processes. A model’s influence depends upon how well an individual remembers the model’s action.
3. Motor reproduction processes. After a person has observed a new behavior by watching a model, he/she must demonstrate an ability to do the modeled activities.
4. Reinforcement processes. Individuals will be motivated to exhibit modeled behavior if positive rewards are provided.
C. Shaping: A Managerial Tool. In shaping, a manager systematically reinforces each successive step that moves an individual closer to a desired response. Behavior can be shaped in four ways:
1. Positive reinforcement is reinforcing a desired behavior by providing something pleasant after that behavior.
2. Negative reinforcement is reinforcing a desired behavior with the termination or withdrawal of something unpleasant.
3. Punishment penalizes undesirable behavior.
4. Extinction involves eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining a behavior.
D. Implications for Managers. From learning theory, managers should recognize that employees will learn while doing a job. A key question:  Will managers manage employees’ learning through the rewards the managers allocate and the examples they set, or will managers allow learning to occur haphazardly?

14.6 CONTEMPORARY OB ISSUES
 A. Managing Generational Differences.  Generations are defined by the
 attitudes and goals that distinguish them from those born in other times.  For managers, adapting to a new generation of employees can be a challenge.
1. In comparison to previous groups, Generation Y employees have proven to be unique in their casual and laid back attitude toward work.  Exhibit 14-8 lists some of the characteristics consistent with Gen Y workers.
2. In dealing with Gen Y workers, managers find three issues that can create conflict with traditional organizational methods: appearance,
  technology, and management style.
B.  Managing Negative Behavior in the Workplace.  Managers need to recognize that negative behaviors exist and ignoring such misbehavior will only confuse employees. In dealing with negative behaviors, managers need to practice preventive and responsive actions.

LET’S GET REAL: MY RESPONSE
Jake Martin
Marketing Manager
Integrity Home Care
Springfield, MO

Integrity Home Care shares the same “employee first” attitude as HCL.  According to Mr. Martin, “Our mission is to cultivate a Christian-based environment in which we can identify and meet the home care needs of our clients and the career needs of our employees with unmatched skill, compassion, and integrity.”  The underlying premise to this philosophy is that by investing in employees, they will respond by “reinvesting in the company” which means greater motivation and performance on the part of employees.

Answers to Review and Discussion Questions 

1. Does the importance of knowledge of OB differ based on a manager’s levels in the organization? If so, how? If not, why not? Be specific.
Knowledge of OB is important for all managers since executives at all levels of the organization deal with people. Low-level managers are likely to supervise employees directly, so they need knowledge of attitudes, perception, and learning. If they have responsibilities pertaining to the hiring of employees, they need to have knowledge about personality. Middle-level managers are likely to need knowledge of attitudes and personality, as they supervise lower-level managers. Upper-level managers need knowledge of attitudes as they deal with organizational design decisions and human resource management issues.

2. Explain why the concept of an organization as an iceberg is important.
Like the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, the real danger of icebergs is not what lies on top, but the hidden portion underneath.   In the attempt to understand employee behavior, it’s the hidden organizational elements (attitudes, perceptions, norms, etc.) that make understanding individual behavior so challenging.

3. Describe the focus and goals of OB.14.1 14.6
Organization behavior (OB) focuses on three areas: individual behavior, group behavior, and organizational aspects. The goals of OB are to explain, predict, and influence behavior.

4. Define the six important employee behaviors.
Employee productivity is a performance measure of both efficiency and effectiveness.
Absenteeism is the failure to report to work. Turnover is the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is discretionary behavior that’s not part of an employee’s formal job requirements but it promotes the effective functioning of an organization. Job satisfaction is an individual’s general attitude toward his or her job. Workplace misbehavior is any intentional employee behavior that is potentially harmful to the organization or individuals within the organization.

5. Describe the three components of an attitude and explain the four job-related attitudes.
The cognitive component refers to the beliefs, opinions, knowledge, or information held by a person. The affective component is the emotional or feeling part of an attitude. The behavioral component refers to an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

6. Contrast the MBTI and the Big Five model. Describe five other personality traits that help explain individual behavior in organizations.
The MBTI focuses on learning styles and measures four dimensions: social interaction, preference for gathering data, preference for decision making, and style of making decisions. The Big Five Model is an attempt to classify personality along a variety of important behaviors and consists of five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.
The five personality traits that help explain individual behavior in organizations are locus of control, Machiavellianism, self-esteem, self-monitoring, and risk-taking. Other personality traits include Type A/Type B personalities, proactive personality, and resilience.
00 PART FIVE | LEADING
7. Explain how an understanding of perception can help managers better understand individual behavior. Name three shortcuts used in judging others.
Perception is how we give meaning to our environment by organizing and interpreting sensory impressions. Because people behave according to their perceptions, managers need to understand it. Three shortcuts used in judging others are assumed similarity, stereotyping, and the
halo effect.

8. Describe the key elements of attribution theory. Discuss the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias.
Attribution theory depends on three factors. Distinctiveness is whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations (that is, is the behavior unusual). Consensus is whether others facing a similar situation respond in the same way. Consistency is when a person engages in behaviors regularly and consistently. Whether these three factors are high or low helps managers determine whether employee behavior is attributed to external or internal causes. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors. The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute our own successes to internal factors and to put the blame for personal failure on external factors.

9. Describe operant conditioning and how managers can shape behavior.
Operant conditioning argues that behavior is a function of its consequences. Managers can use it to explain, predict, and influence behavior. Managers can shape behavior by using positive reinforcement (reinforcing a desired behavior by giving something pleasant), negative reinforcement (reinforcing a desired response by withdrawing something unpleasant), punishment (eliminating undesirable behavior by applying penalties), or extinction (not reinforcing a behavior to eliminate it).

10. Explain the challenges facing managers in managing generational differences and negative behavior in the workplace.
Workplace misbehavior can be dealt with by recognizing that it’s there; carefully screening potential employees for possible negative tendencies; and most importantly, by paying attention to employee attitudes through surveys about job satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

ETHICS DILEMMA 

This chapter’s ethical dilemma introduces the concept of the ‘desperation hustle.’   Employees who are “anxious about layoffs want to look irreplaceable.”  Students are asked what ethical issues might arise for both employees and for managers. How could managers approach these circumstances ethically?  Layoffs are stressful times for everyone, employee and employer alike.  The most important thing to do during these times is to be open with employees and establish lines of communication regarding the future of the organization and employees.  While employees may be tempted to appear needed, it is important for managers to be honest and not lead employees to believe their job is safe when it’s not.  By the same token, employees should be encouraged to be honest and not lie about or exaggerate their contributions to the organization.

SKILLS EXERCISE:  DEVELOPING YOUR  SHAPING SKILLS 

Managers are responsible for teaching employees the behaviors that are most critical to their, and the organization’s, success. This involves ‘shaping’ the behavior of employees, beginning with teaching skills and having them reinforced.  In this exercise, students are given seven steps to practice their shaping skills.  Students are then asked to imagine that their assistant is ideal in all respects but one—he or she is hopeless at taking phone messages for you when you’re not in the office.  Students are asked to think about the factors contributing to this behavior and develop a shaping strategy by determining what can change—the available technology, the task itself, the structure of the job, or some other element of performance.

WORKING TOGETHER:  TEAM EXERCISE 

This exercise addresses (pardon the pun) the issue of employee dress.  This exercise puts students in the middle of a situation in which a female employee is dressing inappropriately for work. Have students form small groups of three to four individuals. The team’s task is to come up with a specific plan for changing (shaping) the behavior of any employee who violates the dress code policy. Have students write this up and be prepared to share their ideas with the class.  In this exercise, have students review the seven shaping behaviors given in the skills exercise.  Students should learn that as prospective managers, they should work toward changing the behavior of employees and not to focus on perceived problems with employee personality.

Your Turn to be a Manager 
• For one week, pay close attention to how people around you behave, especially people who are close to you (roommates, siblings, significant others, coworkers, etc.). Use what you’ve learned about attitudes, personality, perception, and learning to understand and explain how and why they’re behaving the ways they do. Write your observations and your explanations in a journal.

• Write down three attitudes you have. Identify the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of those attitudes.

• Survey 15 employees (at your place of work or at some campus office). Be sure to obtain permission before doing this survey. Ask the employees what rude or negative behaviors they’ve seen at work. Compile your findings in a report and be prepared to discuss this in class. If you were the manager in this workplace, how would you handle this behavior?

• If you’ve never taken a personality or career compatibility test, contact your school’s testing center to see if you can take one. When you get your results, evaluate what they mean for your career choice. Have you chosen a career that “fits” your personality? What are the implications?

• Complete the skill-building module Mentoring found in mymanagementlab. Your professor will tell you what to do with it.

• Have you ever heard of the “waiter rule”? A lot of businesspeople think that how you treat service workers says a lot about your character and attitudes. What do you think this means? Do you agree with this idea? Why or why not? How would you be evaluated on the “waiter rule”?

• Like it or not, each of us is continually shaping the behavior of those around us. For one week, keep track of how many times you use positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, or extinction to shape behaviors. At the end of the week, look at your results. Which one did you tend to use most? What were you trying to do; that is, what behaviors were you trying to shape? Were your attempts successful? Evaluate. What could you have done differently if you were trying to change someone’s behavior?

• Create a job satisfaction survey for a business you’re familiar with.

• Now do a Web search for sample job satisfaction surveys. Find one or two samples. Write a report describing, comparing, and evaluating the examples you found and the survey you created.

• Steve’s and Mary’s recommended readings: Yoav Vardi and Ely Weitz, Misbehavior in Organizations (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004); Murray R. Barrick and A. M. Ryan (eds.), Personality and Work (Jossey-Bass, 2003); Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? (Bantam, 2003); L. Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual Shambhala, 1998); and Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1998).

• Survey 10 Gen Yers. Ask them three questions: (1) What do you think appropriate office attire is? (2) How comfortable are you with using technology, and what types of technology do you rely on most? (3) What do you think the “ideal” boss would be like? Compile your results into a paper that reports your data and summarizes your findings in a bulleted list format.

• In your own words, write down three things you learned in this chapter about being a good manager.

• Self-knowledge can be a powerful learning tool. Go to mymanagementlab and complete these self-assessment exercises: What’s My Basic Personality? What’s My Jungian 16- Type Personality? (Note that this is a miniature version of the MBTI®.) Am I a Type A? How Involved Am I in My Job? How Satisfied Am I with My Job? What’s My Emotional Intelligence Score? How Committed Am I to My Organization? Using the results of your assessments, identify personal strengths and weaknesses. What will you do to reinforce your strengths and improve your weaknesses?

Answers to Case Application Questions 
Understanding HCLites, Part 2
1. What is your impression of an “employee first” culture? Would this work in other organizations? Why or why not? What would it take to make it work?
Most people will see the benefits of HCL’s employee first culture. These types of culture tend to foster higher job satisfaction and greater organizational commitment.  However, this type of organization is not for everyone or every organization.  Some employees may find this type of atmosphere too parternalistic or they may not see the advantage of taking part in the problem solving proposed by Mr. Nayar.  Some organizations may not benefit from this type of culture in that they use a more competitive strategy that focuses on customers.  To make this type of culture work in those organizations would require a change in the basic mission and strategy.

2. How might an understanding of organizational behavior help CEO Vineet Nayar lead his company? Be specific. How about first-line company supervisors? Again, be specific.
Mr. Nayar has good ideas about motivating his workforce.  What he seems to ignore is that not all employees may share his personality and attitude toward work.  This may explain the high turnover HCL has experienced (see opening case).  The ‘trust pay’ implemented by HCL may de-motivate some employees who actually like and benefit from variable pay.  While many of Mr. Nayar’s ideas may work well for top management, his ideas may not filter down into the organization as well as he believes.  First line managers fight different types of battles and deal with a different type of employee than top managers.  Employees at the bottom may value Mr. Nayar’s plans and enthusiasm as much as lower-level employees.

3. What aspects of personality do you see in this story about HCL? How have the personality traits of HCL employees contributed to make what HCL what it is?
Mr. Nayar appears to display a high level of self-esteem and an internal locus of control.  As CEO, his personality and perception plays a big part into the values and goals of the company.  By choosing employees who share a similar personality type as the CEO, you would expect to see employees embrace the company values and goals more quickly and easily.

4. Design an employee attitude survey for HCL’s employees. Compare your ideas with what our “real” manager suggested.
Students should include attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors in the survey items. With the programs proposed by the CEO, Mr. Nayar, the attitudes of employees should be high.  However, something to consider is the concern over high turnover mentioned in the opening case.  High turnover may be indicative of poor employee attitudes toward the organization and low morale.

Odd Couples
1.  What do you think about Randstad’s pairing-up idea? Would you be comfortable with such an arrangement? Why or why not?
Encourage students to share how they feel about working so closely with others.  While some students enjoy the camaraderie of working with a partner, it’s common to find that today’s students do not enjoy working closely with others.  Get students to share their past experiences with groups that may have left them with a positive or negative attitude toward the type of plan promoted by Ranstad.

2.  What personality traits would be most needed for this type of work arrangement? Why?
The following personality characteristics would be consistent with Ranstad’s cooperative culture.  Have students consider other characteristics as well, and have them defend their selections.
• Extrovert
• Perceptive
• Conscientious
• Open to new experiences
• Agreeable
• Self-motivated
• High self-esteem

3.  What types of issues might a Gen Y employee and an older, more-experienced employee face when working closely together? How could two people in such a close-knit work arrangement deal with those issues?
The particular pairings encouraged at Randstad are sure to bring to light some of the major differences between the two generation groups.  Have students think about some of the issues they would face working with an older employee.  Also, have students try to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is older and go through some of the difficulties they may face working with a Gen Y.  Are there accommodations that could be made by both groups that would facilitate the working relationships?  How could they work to develop a common ground to build a strong working relationship?

4. Design an employee attitude survey for Randstad’s employees.
Students will have a variety of items for this question.  You should be sure to emphasize the legal requirements concerning types of questions that employers ask their employees.  Students should also be able to explain what their questions are designed to measure.  You may want to ask students how they would determine both the validity and the reliability of their survey items.

ADDITIONAL CHAPTER INFORMATION 

You may want to have your students research the age-old question of the role of nature versus environment (nurture) in determining personality. Some of this research is currently exploring which aspects of personality may have a genetic component by asking the question:  Does DNA shape behavior? Some aspects of personality that may have a genetic component include risk-taking, impulsiveness, openness, conservatism, and hostility. Another area your students may wish to address is the subject of loyalty to one’s organization. You might ask students to consider how relevant organizational commitment is today, considering that individuals change jobs and careers more often than in the past.