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This Reflective journal on Organizational Behavior course’s major learning is prepared as partial
requirement of the course ‘Organizational Behavior’ , Course code- MKT-511, instructed by Professor
A reflective journal is a personal account of an educational experience that offers a variety of benefits,
from enhancing our writing skills and helping us retain information to express our thoughts on new ideas
and theories.
This reflective journal is the outcome of our three member group effort. We have focused on five major
Job satisfaction
Personality trait
Values
Perception
Motivation
We have tried to explain why we have chosen these topics, how we can implement our learning in our
practical profession and what potential barrier we may face while applying these learning.
Job Satisfaction
Research suggests that satisfied workforce will likely to influence positively in organizational
effectiveness. Satisfied employee gradually turn into productive employee who contribute continuously
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What Causes Job Satisfaction?
Job Conditions
Personality
Pay
Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy most employees.
Interdependence, feedback, social support, and interaction with co-workers outside the workplace are
strongly related to job satisfaction even after accounting for characteristics of the work itself.
Job Performance
Customer Satisfaction
Life Satisfaction
Exit: The exit response directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including looking for a
Voice: The voice response includes actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions,
including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some
Loyalty: The loyalty response means passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to
improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting
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Neglect: The neglect response passively allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic
Personality Trait
We have learnt about Myers-Brigs type indicator and big five personality model. We will focus on the
later in this reflective journal as research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all others and
encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. Test scores of these traits can provide
a better picture about how people will react in various real life situations.
Extraversion- Extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts
tend to be gregarious, assertive and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, quiet, timid.
Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm and trusting. People who score low on
people is responsible, organized, dependable and persistent. Those who score low on this
Emotional stability- The emotional stability taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People
with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self confident and secure. Those with high
Openness to experience- The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and
fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, artistically sensitive. On
the other hand, less open people are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
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How personality trait model can be implemented in practical life
Personality affects almost all aspects of our life, how we react to others, how we deal with stressful
situations, how we handle our job, how we make our relationships work. In this journal we will discuss
how we can use this model in employee hiring decision making as a manager of our organization, as we
have found that it is tremendously important to recognize personality traits and pair employees with the
For example, if we want constantly improving, deadline and objective driven, goal and priority oriented,
organized, thorough and accurate employee, then we will need someone who has industriousness,
If our job requires someone who is calm, composed, skillfully deals with stressful situation, impartial
during conflicting demands, we will need someone with better score in emotional stability.
If we need someone with outspoken, attracts people with friendly interactions, pleasant, conveys a
positive attitude and outlook, builds a positive team spirit, then we need to hire someone with high score
in extraversion.
To implement this model in hiring decision, at first we need to identify the demands of the role we are
recruiting. We need to assess whether we need a team player or someone loves to work independently?
We need to identify our organizations culture, flexible or strict? Will the role require a lot of creativity
or need orderliness and analytical ability? Once we have identified the personality of the role, we can
use big five model to find out how each candidate match with our requirement through written or oral
Research suggest that extremely conscientious people do not perform better than those who are
conscientious people don’t adapt as well to changing contexts. They are generally performance
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oriented and have more trouble learning complex skills early in the training process because their
One downside with people high in extraversion is that they are more impulsive than introverts; they
are more likely to be absent from work and engage in risky behavior such as drinking, and other
impulsive or sensation-seeking acts. Study also found extraverts were more likely than introverts to
As per research, people high in openness, are especially susceptible to workplace accidents.
One downside is that agreeableness is associated with lower levels of career success (especially
earnings).
Values
Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally
or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence. They contain
a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right, good, or desirable. Values
have both content and intensity attributes. The content attribute says a mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is important. The intensity attribute specifies how important it is. When we rank an individual’s
values in terms of their intensity, we obtain that person’s value system. All of us have a hierarchy of
values that forms our value system. We find it in the relative importance we assign to values such as
Values lay the foundation for our understanding of people’s attitudes and motivation and influence our
perceptions. Values cloud objectivity and rationality, they influence attitudes and behavior.
Value system is A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity.
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Terminal values: Desirable end-states of existence; the goals a person would like to achieve during his
or her lifetime.
Instrumental values: Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values.
International Values
Power distance: A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society accepts that
Individualism: A national culture attribute that describes the degree to which people prefer to act as
Collectivism: A national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect
others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.
Masculinity: A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which the culture favors traditional
masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control. Societal values are characterized by
Femininity: A national culture attribute that indicates little differentiation between male and female
roles; a high rating indicates that women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society.
Uncertainty avoidance: A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society
feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them.
Long-term orientation: A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence.
Short-term orientation: A national culture attribute that emphasizes the past and present, respect for
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There is an argument that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that match their values
and they leave organizations that are compatible with their personality. This concept is known as person-
organization fit theory. As a manager of our organization, if we need to recruit new employee for a
position, we need to think about person-organization fit to a great extent. As link between person-
organization fit is very strong, the more an individual fits with an organization, the more he will display
higher level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Individual do not enjoy working for a
company that does not fit well with their personal values, as a result job switching tendency increases.
So when we are recruiting new head for our company, we need to identify our organization’s values and
cultures, then hunt the perfect employee who is perfectly compatible with our organization.
Perception
Perception is the way of thinking about someone, somebody or something. In an organization how a
person will behave or what will be the situation is the basic cognitive or psychological process which is
as known as Perception. What we perceive can be substantially different from objective reality or it
Often the main aspects of perception in an organization is how an individual view other, as this can be a
major point in how that person will behave within the business. Perception is influenced by some factors
which can reside in the perceiver, the object or target being perceived, or the situation in the perception
made. Many of our perceptions of others are formed by first impressions and small cues that have little
supporting evidence. From observing people, our perception and judgement of a person’s actions make
us assume about that person’s state of mind. Attribution theory suggests from observing people’s
behavior help us to determine whether it was internally or externally caused depends largely on three
Distinctiveness
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Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness Refers how people behave in different situations. If all people behave same in similar
situation shows consensus & people’s action is the consistency for an observer. Internally caused
behavior are those for an observer believes to be under the personal behavioral control of another person.
Attribution theory is significant for organizations because it helps managers understand some of
the causes of employee behavior and assists employees in understanding their thinking about their
own behaviors.
The concept of attribution theory effectively advances our understanding of people perception by
helping us identify the reason for the actions you take and understand the reasons behind the
The perception of the causes of a certain behavior can affect the judgment and actions of both
We want to attribute causes to these behaviors, which should give we some felling of control over
Errors or biases distort attribution. When we judgement other people we underestimate external factors
and overestimate internal factors from which we are going to get some knowledge about it:
Fundamental attribution error: To know about someone’s tendency to make crass and assumed
character for judgment we get result of primarily internal influences, rather than external. Not
only that, but it suggests that perception of our own behaviors attenuates primarily towards the
opposite — that external factors are of greater influence to our outcome-prompting actions than
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internal factors. It can explain if I’m in sales team as sales manager my attributed the poor
performance of my sales agents to laziness rather than to a competitor’s innovative product line.
People & organizations tend to attribute their own successes to internal factors such as bad luck
or difficult coworkers.
Self-Serving Bias: People’s tendency to accept positivity and to reject negativity. They take
positivity for their own character but attribute negativity to external factors. For example, if my
organization meets its target, it will always take credits for internal factor and if it can’t meet its
Motivation
Motivation is the process that count on an individual’s intensity, direction and persistence of effort
toward attain a goal. How hard a person tries is described by intensity. High intensity leads to favorable
job-performance outcomes if the effort is channeled in a direction which benefits the organization. For
Organization’s goals our effort should be seeking & for that motivation get a persistence dimension. This
The psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a theory point out that humans are motivated to satisfy
five basic needs. These needs are placed in a hierarchy which is the best-known theory of Abraham
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow suggested that first we seek to satisfy the lowest level of needs.
Once if it is done, we seek to satisfy each of the higher level of need up to we have satisfied all five
needs.
Later on, Maslow extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. From the
Physiological needs are biological requirements for human survival, air, food, drink, shelter,
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Safety needs are security, protection from danger and freedom from pain.
Social - belongingness include such things as love, acceptance, and belonging. In this level, the
Esteem include that People develop a concern with getting recognition, status, importance, and
respect from others. Most humans have the feeling to be respected; this includes the need to have
Self-actualization refers to self- fulfillment. This is about the desire to develop and realize that
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory for organizational structures by identifying those that are relevant
to a work environment. Employees have some needs that they expect to fulfill in the workplace. The
most basic needs require is organizational flexibility that lets employees take breaks for snacks and
meals. A stable organization with clear responsibilities provides security. everybody wants a good salary
to meet the needs of their family and they want to work in a stable environment. For example, if
employees get insurance, safety and give support if anything unexpected occur from the organization
they work these things will increase their sense of safety and security and make them feel more
The major problem of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is that it can’t be verified practically,
because there is no proper method dimension how satisfied one level must be to move forward
next level. So an organization can’t get the summit of it’s employee’s satisfaction level.
The theory does not describes cultural differences, but assumes that the same needs will apply
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The concept of self-actualization suffers of fuzzy definitions and a lack of evidence other than
improbable.
The theory does not describes the different needs theory for different individuals and for that it is
not applicable for all type of employees like lower to higher level.
These were the five major learnings from our Organizational Behavior course. We have tried to cover
the reflection of our learning process throughout the course and hopefully it will help us in future to take
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