This document provides an overview of personality and values as major influences on behavior. It discusses several personality frameworks including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five model. The Myers-Briggs categorizes personalities into 16 types based on four scales, while the Big Five identifies five broad personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. The document also examines how personality traits predict workplace behaviors and performance. Finally, it introduces the "Dark Triad" of socially undesirable traits - Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy - and their implications.

1. Personality and Values and Perception and Individual decision making
As you learn more about personalities and traits, how would you describe your own
personality? Do you think that your personality type and traits have a positive or a negative
impact on your work relationship with others? How do you deal with individuals who may
have an opposite personality?
End your post with a question to your classmates.
Requirements: 250 words
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 1 Chapter 5 Personality and Values Chapter
Overview Personality and values are major shapers of behavior. In order for managers to
predict behavior, they must know the personalities of those who work for them. The
chapter starts out with a review of the research on personality and its relationship to
behavior and ends by describing how values shape many of our work-related behaviors.
Chapter Objectives After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: 1. Describe
personality, the way it is measured, and the factors that shape it. 2. Describe the Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality framework and the Big Five model, 3. Discuss how
the concepts of core self-evaluation (CSE), self-monitoring, and proactive personality
contribute to the understanding of personality. 4. Describe how the situation affects
whether personality predicts behavior. 5. Contrast terminal and instrumental values. 6.
Describe the differences between person-job fit and person-organization fit. 7. Identify
Hofstede’s five value dimensions and the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Effectiveness (GLOBE) framework. Suggested Lecture Outline I. PERSONALITY A. What Is
Personality? 1. Personality. When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a dynamic
concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
2. Defining Personality: Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to,
and interacts with, others — described in terms of measurable traits. a. Early work on
personality tried to identify and label enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s
behavior including shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid. 1) When
someone exhibits these characteristics in a large number of situations and they are
relatively enduring over time, we call them personality traits. 3. Assessing Personality:
Personality assessments have been increasingly used in diverse organizational settings. a.
In fact, 8 of the top 10 U.S. private companies and 57 percent of all large U.S. companies use
them, including Xerox, McDonald’s, and Lowe’s.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 2 b. Schools such as DePaul University have also
begun to use personality tests in their admissions process. c. Personality tests are useful in

2. hiring decisions and help managers forecast who is best for a job. 4. Measuring Results: The
most common means of measuring personality is through self-report surveys: 1)
Individuals evaluate themselves on a series of factors. 2) Potentially inaccurate due to
falsehoods, impression management, or the momentary emotional state of the candidate. 5.
Culture and Ratings: Research indicates our culture influences the way we rate ourselves. a.
People in individualistic countries (see Chapter 4) like the United States and Australia trend
toward self-enhancement, while people in collectivistic countries (see Chapter 4) like
Taiwan, China, and South Korea trend toward self-diminishment. 6. Self-Reports and
Observer-Ratings: Observer-ratings surveys provide an independent assessment of
personality. a. Here, a coworker or another observer does the rating. b. Though the results
of self-reports and observer-ratings surveys are strongly correlated, research suggests
observer-ratings surveys predict job success more than self-ratings alone. c. However, each
can tell us something unique about an individual’s behavior, so a combination of self-
reports and observer-ratings predicts performance 7. Personality Determinants:
Personality appears to be development of both hereditary and environmental factors. Of
the two, heredity seems to have the most impact. a. Heredity: These are factors determined
at conception such as physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle
composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms. 1) The heredity approach
argues that personality is determined at the chromosome level. 2) As people grow older,
their personalities do change. 3) However, this change is more in terms of level of ability
than it is in changes in the actual ranking of the behavioral traits themselves—which are
very stable over time. B. PERSONALITY FRAMEWORKS 1. Many of our behaviors stem from
our personalities, so understanding the components of personality helps us predict
behavior. Important theoretical frameworks and assessment tools, discussed next, help us
categorize and study the dimensions of personality. 2. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI). 3. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used instrument in
the world. Respondents are asked a series of situational questions and their answers are
categorized on four scales to determine personality type. a. Four Classification Scales:
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 3 1) Extraverted versus Introverted (E or I). People
scoring higher on the extraverted side of the scale are more outgoing, social, and assertive
while those on the introvert side are quiet and shy. 2) Sensing versus Intuitive (S or N).
Sensing individuals are practical, enjoy order, and are detail oriented. Intuitive people are
more big picture oriented and rely on gut feelings. 3) Thinking versus Feeling (T or F). This
scale is important in decision making: thinkers use reason and logic while feelers use
emotions and their own personal values to make decisions. 4) Judging versus Perceiving (J
or P). Judgers are control-oriented and enjoy structure and order. Perceivers are more
flexible and spontaneous. b. These classifications together describe 16 personality types,
with every person identified with one of the items in each of the four pairs. Let’s explore
several examples. 1) Introverted/Intuitive/Thinking/Judging people (INTJs) are
visionaries. a) They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and
purposes. b) They are skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn. 2)
ESTJs are organizers. a) They are realistic, logical, analytical, and decisive and have a
natural head for business or mechanics. b) They like to organize and run activities. 3) The

3. ENTP type is a conceptualizer, a) They are innovative, individualistic, versatile, and
attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. b) This person tends to be resourceful in solving
challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments. 4. In spite of its popularity,
evidence is mixed about the MBTI’s validity as a measure of personality—with most of the
evidence suggesting it isn’t. a. One problem is that it forces a person into either one type or
another (that is, you’re either introverted or extraverted). b. There is no in-between,
though people can be both extraverted and introverted to some degree. c. The best we can
say is that the MBTI can be a valuable tool for increasing self-awareness and providing
career guidance. d. But because results tend to be unrelated to job performance, managers
probably shouldn’t use it as a selection test for job candidates. C. The Big Five Personality
Model. 1. The Big Five Model of personality has an impressive body of research that
supports it. 2. The model (particularly one factor, conscientiousness) appears to be
positively related to job performance and can be used as an employment selection or
screening tool. 3. Five Factors. a. Extraversion: Deals with the comfort level with
relationships.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 4 1) Like the MBTI, this is contrasted with
introversion. 2) Scoring high in this factor means the respondent is more gregarious,
assertive, and sociable. 3) Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet. 4) Extraverts
tend to be happy in their jobs but may be impulsive and absent themselves from work to
take on some other, more sensational tasks. b. Agreeableness: Measures deference toward
others. 1) High scorers are cooperative, warm, and trusting while low scorers are cold,
disagreeable, and antagonistic. 2) Agreeable workers are less likely to be involved in drugs
and excessive drinking. c. Conscientiousness: Measures reliability. 1) High scorers are
responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. 2) Low scorers are easily distracted,
disorganized, and unreliable. 3) Not surprisingly, this is the key determinant of job
performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on the Big Five. 4) However,
conscientious people also tend not to take risks and may find organizational change difficult
to handle. d. Emotional Stability (or Neuroticism – its opposite): Measures ability to handle
stress. 1) The more stable a person, the better he (or she) can handle stress. 2) People with
high emotional stability tend to become self-confident and secure. 3) They often have
higher life and job satisfaction. Low emotional stability scorers tend to be nervous, anxious,
depressed, and insecure. 4) Yet, surprisingly, low-scoring people make better and faster
decisions when in a bad mood than do stable people. e. Openness to Experience: Measures
the range of interests and fascination with novelty, a proxy for creativity. 1) People who
score low on this factor tend to be conventional and enjoy familiar circumstances. 2) High
scorers tend to be creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. 3) People high in this factor
deal better with organizational change and are more adaptable. 4. How do the Big Five traits
predict behavior at work? a. Research on the Big Five has found relationships between
these personality dimensions and job performance. b. Conscientiousness at Work: 1)
Employees who score higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge;
probably because highly conscientious people learn more (conscientiousness was rather
strongly related to GPA). 2) Higher levels of job knowledge then contribute to higher levels
of job performance. 3) Despite pitfalls, conscientiousness is the best overall predictor of job

4. performance. However, the other Big Five traits are also related to
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 5 aspects of performance and have other implications
for work and for life. Exhibit 5-1 summarizes these other relations. c. Emotional Stability at
Work: Of the Big Five traits, emotional stability is most strongly related to life satisfaction,
job satisfaction, and low stress levels. d. Emotional Stability at Work: Extraverts tend to be
happier in their jobs and in their lives as a whole. 1) They experience more positive
emotions than do introverts, and they more freely express these feelings. 2) Extraversion at
Work: Extraverts tend to perform better in jobs that require significant interpersonal
interaction. a) Finally, extraversion is a relatively strong predictor of leadership emergence
in groups; extraverts are more socially dominant, take charge sorts of people, and they are
generally more assertive than introverts. b) One downside of extraversion is that extraverts
are more impulsive than introverts; they are more likely to be absent from work and engage
in risky behavior such as unprotected sex, drinking, and other impulsive or sensation-
seeking acts. 3) Openness at Work: Individuals who score high on openness to experience
are more creative in science and art than those who score low. a) They also are more
comfortable with ambiguity and change than those who score lower on this trait. 4)
Agreeableness at Work: You might expect agreeable people to be happier than disagreeable
people. a) And they are, but only slightly. b) When people choose romantic partners,
friends, or organizational team members, agreeable individuals are usually their first
choice. c) Agreeable individuals are better liked than disagreeable people, which explains
why they tend to do better in interpersonally oriented jobs such as customer service. d)
They also are more compliant and rule abiding and less likely to get into accidents as a
result. e) Agreeable children do better in school and as adults are less likely to get involved
in drugs or excessive drinking. f) They are also less likely to engage in organizational
deviance. One downside of agreeableness is that it is associated with lower levels of career
success (especially earnings). g) Agreeable individuals may be poorer negotiators; they are
so concerned with pleasing others that they often don’t negotiate as much for themselves as
they might. 5) In general, the Big Five personality factors appear in almost all cross-cultural
studies, including China, Israel, Germany, Japan, Spain, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, and the
United States. e. The Dark Triad. 1) Research indicates the Big Five traits have the most
verifiable linkages to important organizational outcomes, but neither are they the only
traits a
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 6 person exhibits nor are they the only ones with
organizational behavior implications. 2) Researchers have found three socially undesirable
traits are relevant to organizational behavior: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and
psychopathy. Researchers have labeled these traits the Dark Triad. b. Machiavellianism: 1)
(often abbreviated Mach) Named after Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote in the sixteenth
century on how to gain and use power. 2) An individual high in Machiavellianism is
pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes ends can justify means. “If it works,
use it” is consistent with a high-Mach perspective. 3) A considerable amount of research
has related high- and low-Mach personalities to behavioral outcomes. 4) High Machs
manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, and persuade others more than do low
Machs. 5) Yet high-Mach outcomes are moderated by situational factors. High Machs

5. flourish: a) when they interact face to face with others rather than indirectly; b) when the
situation has a minimal number of rules and regulations, allowing latitude for
improvisation; and c) when emotional involvement with details irrelevant to winning
distracts low Machs. 6) Thus, whether high Machs make good employees depends on the
type of job. 7) In jobs that require bargaining skills (such as labor negotiation) or that offer
substantial rewards for winning (such as commissioned sales), high Machs will be
productive. 8) But if ends can’t justify the means, there are absolute standards of behavior,
or the three situational factors we noted are not in evidence, our ability to predict a high
Mach’s performance will be severely curtailed. c. Narcissism. 1) The term is from the Greek
myth of Narcissus, a man so vain and proud he fell in love with his own image. 2) In
psychology, narcissism describes a person who has a grandiose sense of self-importance,
requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement, and is arrogant. 3) Narcissism can
have pretty toxic consequences. a) A study found that although narcissists thought they
were better leaders than their colleagues, their supervisors actually rated them as worse. b)
For example, an Oracle executive described that company’s CEO Larry Ellison as follows:
“The difference between God and Larry is that God does not believe he is Larry.” 4) Because
narcissists often want to gain the admiration of others and receive affirmation of their
superiority, they tend to “talk down” to those who threaten them, treating others as if they
were inferior.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 7 5) Narcissists also tend to be selfish and exploitive
and believe others exist for their benefit. 6) Their bosses rate them as less effective at their
jobs than others, particularly when it comes to helping other people. d. Psychopathy. 1) In
the OB context, psychopathy is defined as a lack of concern for others, and a lack of guilt or
remorse when their actions cause harm. a) Measures of psychopathy attempt to assess the
person’s motivation to comply with social norms; willingness to use deceit to obtain desired
ends and the effectiveness of those efforts; impulsivity; and disregard, that is, lack of
empathic concern for others. 2) The literature is not consistent about whether
psychopathy or other aberrant personality traits are important to work behavior. 3) Given
the newness of research on the Dark Triad, using psychopathology scores for employment
decisions may carry more risks for now than rewards. Organizations wishing to assess
psychopathy or other traits need to exercise caution. e. Other Traits. 1) The Dark Triad is a
helpful framework for studying the three dominant dark-side traits in current personality
research, and researchers are exploring other traits as well. a) One emerging framework
incorporates five additional aberrant compound traits based on the Big Five. (1) First,
antisocial people are indifferent and callous toward others. They use their extraversion to
charm people, but they may be prone to violent counterproductive work behaviors and
risky decision making. (2) Second, borderline people have low self-esteem and high
uncertainty. They are unpredictable in their interactions at work, are inefficient, and may
have low job satisfaction. (3) Third, schizotypal individuals are eccentric and disorganized.
In the workplace, they can be highly creative, although they are susceptible to work stress.
(4) Fourth, obsessive-compulsive people are perfectionists and can be stubborn, yet they
attend to details, carry a strong work ethic, and may be motivated by achievement. (5)
Fifth, avoidant individuals feel inadequate and hate criticism. They can function only in

6. environments requiring little interaction. E. Other Personality Traits Relevant to
organizational behavior. 1. Core Self-Evaluation. a. This is a measure of the degree to
which a person likes or dislikes him- or herself. b. Positive core self-evaluators like
themselves and see themselves as being effective, capable, and in charge of their
environment. They tend to perform better because they set ambitious goals and persist at
achieving them. c. Negative evaluators tend to dislike themselves, question their
capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their environment. Commented [l1]:
Commented [AE2R1]: Commented [AE3R1]:
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 8 2. Self-Monitoring. a. Self-Monitoring describes the
ability of people to adjust their behaviors to fit external, situational factors. 1) High self-
monitors are very adaptable and sensitive to external cues. People with low self-monitoring
tend to have high behavioral consistency while high self-monitors can appear chameleon-
like to their coworkers. 2) High self-monitors tend to get better performance ratings, take
leadership positions, are more mobile, and take up central positions in their organizations,
even though they have less commitment to their organization. 3. Proactive Personality. a.
Individuals with proactive personalities tend to identify opportunities, show initiative, take
action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs. b. People with this personality
attribute are highly prized by organizations for obvious reasons. c. They are often leaders
or change agents and will challenge the status quo. d. Proactive people tend to have
successful careers but may not be a good match for organizations who do not value change.
F. Personality and Situations. 1. Interestingly, we are learning that the effect of particular
traits in organizational behavior depends on the situation. Two theoretical frameworks,
situation strength and trait activation, help explain how this works. 2. Situation Strength
Theory. a. Situation strength theory proposes that the way personality translates into
behavior depends on the strength of the situation. By situation strength, we mean the
degree to which norms, cues, or standards dictate appropriate behavior. 1) Strong
situations pressure us to exhibit the right behavior, clearly show us what that behavior is,
and discourage the wrong behavior. 2) In weak situation, “anything goes,” and thus, we are
freer to express our personality in our behaviors. 3) Thus, research suggests that
personality traits better predict behavior in weak situations than in strong ones. b.
Components of Situation Strength: Researchers have analyzed situation strength in
organizations in terms of four elements. 1) Clarity: the degree to which cues about work
duties and responsibilities are available and clear. 2) Consistency: the extent to which cues
regarding work duties and responsibilities are compatible with one another. 3) Constraints:
the extent to which individuals’ freedom to decide or act is limited by forces outside their
control. 4) Consequences: the degree to which decisions or actions have important
implications for the organization or its members, clients, supplies, and so on. c.
Organizational Situations: Some researchers have speculated that organizations are, by
definition, strong situations because they impose rules,
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 9 norms, and standards that govern behavior. These
constraints are usually appropriate. d. But that does not mean that it is always desirable for
organizations to create strong situations for their employees. 1) Jobs with myriad rules and
tightly controlled processes can be dull or demotivating. 2) People do differ, so what works

7. well for one person might work poorly for another. 3. Trait Activation Theory (TAT). a. Trait
Activation Theory (TAT) predicts that some situations, events, or interventions “activate” a
trait more than others (Exhibit 5-2). 1) Research shows that in a supportive environment,
everyone behaves prosocially, but in an environment that is not so nice, whether an
individual has the personality to behave prosocially makes a major difference. b. Together,
situation strength and trait activation theories show that the debate over nature versus
nurture might best be framed as nature and nurture. Not only does each affect behavior,
but they interact with one another. 1) Personality affects work behavior and the situation
affects work behavior, but when the situation is right, the power of personality to predict
behavior is even higher. II. VALUES A. 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. 1. They contain a judgmental
element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right, good, or desirable. 2.
Values have both content and intensity attributes. a. The content attribute says a mode of
conduct or end-state of existence is important. b. The intensity attribute specifies how
important it is. c. When we rank an individual’s values in terms of their intensity, we obtain
that person’s value system. 3. All of us have a hierarchy of values that forms our value
system. a. We find it in the relative importance we assign to values such as freedom,
pleasure, self-respect, honesty, obedience, and equality. 4. Values tend to be relatively stable
and enduring. 5. Values lay the foundation for understanding people's attitudes, motivation,
and behavior. 6. They influence our perceptions. 7. Values can cloud objectivity and
rationality. B. Terminal versus Instrumental Values. 1. Values can be classified by
instruments such as the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS). 2. This instrument consists of two
sets of values. a. The sets are terminal and instrumental values. 1) Terminal Values.
Focuses on desirable end-states; goals a person would like to achieve.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 10 2) Instrumental Values. Lists preferable modes of
behavior or means of achieving terminal values. C. Generational Values. 1. Researchers have
integrated several analyses of work values into groups that attempt to capture the shared
views of different cohorts or generations in the U.S. workforce. 2. You will surely be familiar
with the labels—for example, baby boomers, gen-xers, millennials—some of which are used
internationally. a. It is important to remember that while categories are helpful, they
represent trends not the beliefs of individuals. III. LINKING AN INDIVIDUAL’S
PERSONALITY AND VALUES TO THE WORKPLACE Managers have become concerned with
matching both the personality and the values of an employee with those of the organization.
The hope is to identify workers who are both flexible and committed to the organization. A.
Person-Job Fit. 1. Holland’s Personality-Job Fit Theory: a. Holland identified six personality
types and proposed that job satisfaction and propensity to leave depend on how well the
job and personalities are matched (congruency). b. Social individuals belong in jobs
requiring social skills and so on. c. Vocational Preference Inventory Questionnaire. 1) This
was the tool Holland used to identify congruent occupations. 2) The six personality types
(or fields in Holland’s terminology) are laid out on a hexagon. 3) Fields that lie adjacent to
each other are similar; those diagonally opposite are highly dissimilar. 4) Appropriate jobs
for that personality (that is, those jobs that are congruent to the field) are listed either

8. within the field’s segment of the hexagon or in a separate document. d. There are cultural
implications for person–job fit that speak to workers’ expectations that jobs will be tailored
to them. 1) In individualistic countries where workers expect to be heard and respected by
management, increasing person–job fit by tailoring the job to the person increases the
individual’s job satisfaction. 2) However, in collectivistic countries, person–job fit is a
weaker predictor of job satisfaction because people do not expect to have jobs tailored to
them, so they value person–job fit efforts less. B. Person-Organization Fit. 1. The
understanding that a person must be a good match to the organization itself has become
increasingly important to managers. 2. The person-organization fit concept argues that
employees are more likely to leave an organization when their personalities do not match
the organizational culture rather than when their skills or personalities are a good match
with a particular job. 3. The alignment of an employee’s personality and values with an
organization’s culture is positively related to increased job satisfaction, lower turnover, and
higher organizational commitment.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 11 4. By testing and selecting based on this concept,
managers can increase organizational outcomes. C. Other Dimensions of Fit. 1. Although
person–job fit and person–organization fit are considered the most salient dimensions for
workplace outcomes, other avenues of fit are worth examining. 2. These include person–
group fit and person–supervisor fit. a. Person–group fit is important in team settings,
where the dynamics of team interactions significantly affect work outcomes. b. Person–
supervisor fit has become an important area of research since poor fit in this dimension can
lead to lower job satisfaction and reduced performance. 3. All dimensions of fit are
sometimes broadly referred to as person–environment fit. Each dimension can predict work
attitudes, which are partially based on culture. IV. CULTURAL VALUES A. Because values
differ across cultures, an understanding of the differences would be helpful in explaining
and predicting behavior of employees from different countries. Two frameworks to assess
culture are Hofstede’s Framework and the GLOBE studies. B. Hofstede’s Framework. 1.
Examines five value dimensions of national culture. While there are many criticisms of this
framework, it is one of the most widely read and accepted in OB (Exhibit 5-4). a. Power
Distance: The degree to which people accept that power in institutions and organizations is
distributed unequally. 1) High power distance means that great inequities in power and
wealth are tolerated. 2) Low power distance cultures stress equality and upward
opportunities. b. Individualism/Collectivism: The amount of emphasis placed on the
individual as opposed to the group. 1) Individualism is when people prefer to act as
individuals rather than as members of groups and believe in individual rights above all else.
2) Collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework in which people expect group members
to look after and protect them. c. Masculinity/Femininity: The value a culture places on
traditional gender roles. 1) Masculine societies have men dominating society, separate
roles for men and women, and expressly value achievement, power, and control. 2)
Feminine cultures value equality among the sexes. d. Uncertainty Avoidance: The degree to
which people in a culture prefer structured over unstructured situations. 1) High
uncertainty avoidance cultures are anxious over ambiguity and uncertainty: they emphasize
law and controls. 2) Low cultures accept a greater variety of opinion and higher levels of

9. risk while relying less on rules: they more readily accept change.
Chapter 5 Personality and Values 12 e. Long-Term/Short-Term Orientation: Degree of
long-term devotion to traditional values. 1) Long-term cultures are future-oriented and
value tradition, thrift, and persistence. 2) Short-term cultures are immediate and accept
change more readily. 2. There are both regional and national differences in culture as
measured by this framework. 3. Hofstede’s framework is not without its critics, but it is
still highly influential. C. The GLOBE Framework. 1. A relatively recent and on-going
program of research, this framework uses nine dimensions of national culture. a. Some
dimensions – such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance,
gender differentiation, and future orientation can be seen as an extension of Hofstede’s
framework. b. The main difference is that the GLOBE framework added dimensions such as
humane orientation (the degree individuals are rewarded for fair, generous, and altruistic
behaviors) and performance orientation (the degree to which group members are rewarded
for performance improvement and excellence). 2. Comparison of Hofstede’s Framework
and the GLOBE Framework. a. Which framework is better? That is hard to say, and each has
its supporters. V. SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS A. Personality. Managers
need to evaluate the job, the work group, and the organization in order to determine what
the optimum Big Five personality type would be for a new employee. The MBTI could be
helpful in training and development. B. Values. Values strongly influence attitudes,
behaviors, and perceptions, so knowing a person’s values may help improve prediction of
behavior. C. Additionally, matching an individual’s values to organizational culture can
result in positive organizational outcomes. 1. Consider screening job candidates for high
conscientiousness — as well as the other Big Five traits, depending on the criteria your
organization finds most important. Other traits, such as core self-evaluation or narcissism,
may be relevant in certain situations. 2. Although the MBTI has faults, you can use it in
training and development to help employees better understand themselves, help team
members better understand each other, and open up communication in work groups and
possibly reduce conflicts. 3. Evaluate jobs, work groups, and your organization to determine
the optimal personality fit. 4. Take into account employees’ situational factors when
evaluating their observable personality traits, and lower the situation strength to better
ascertain personality characteristics. 5. The more you consider people’s different cultures,
the better you will be able to determine their work behavior and create a positive
organizational climate that performs well.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 1 Chapter 6 Perception and
Individual Decision Making Chapter Overview The old saying is that “perception is reality”
and managers must learn what “reality” their workers are reacting to in order to effectively
predict behavior. This chapter examines how perception acts to create an employee’s view
of reality and modifies decision making. Chapter Objectives After studying this chapter,
the student should be able to: 1. Explain the factors that influence perception. 2. Describe
attribution theory. 3. Explain the link between perception and decision making. 4. Contrast
the rational model of decision making with bounded rationality and intuition. 5. Explain
how individual differences and organizational constraints affect decision making. 6.
Contrast the three ethical decision criteria. 7. Describe the three-stage model of creativity.

10. Suggested Lecture Outline I. INTRODUCTION A. This chapter examines perception and the
influences on perception. It continues with an exploration of how individuals make
decisions and how perception can influence those decisions. II. WHAT IS PERCEPTION? A.
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. a. However, what we perceive
can be substantially different from objective reality. b. For example, all employees in a firm
may view it as a great place to work—favorable working conditions, interesting job
assignments, good pay, excellent benefits, understanding and responsible management—
but, as most of us know, it’s very unusual to find such agreement. c. The study of perception
is important simply because people’s behavior is based on their perceptions of what reality
is, not on reality itself. d. The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviorally
important. B. Factors Influencing Perception. a. Perceiver. When you look at a target and
attempt to interpret what you see, your interpretation is heavily influenced by your
personal characteristics.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 2 a. Characteristics that affect
perception include your attitudes, personality, motives, interests, past experiences, and
expectations. b. Target. The object being perceived. a. Characteristics of the target will
affect how it is perceived. b. Things that are bright, beautiful, loud, or unusual are far more
likely to be noticed. c. The relationship of the target to its background influences
perception as does the human trait of grouping similar things together. c. Context. The
context in which the perception is made. a. The context (time, location, light, heat, the
appropriateness of attire) can influence the extent of perception of a target. C. Person
Perception: Making Judgments About Others. a. Organizational behavior (OB) is concerned
with people perception because how people see each other can, in large part, determine
how well these individuals can work together and indicate an organization’s level of
potential conflict. a. Person perception: the perceptions people form about each other. b.
Attribution Theory. a. Nonliving objects such as desks, machines, and buildings are subject
to the laws of nature, but they have no beliefs, motives, or intentions. People do. 1) That’s
why when we observe people, we attempt to explain why they behave in certain ways. 2)
Our perception and judgment of a person’s actions therefore will be significantly influenced
by the assumptions we make about that person’s internal state. 3) Attribution theory tries
to explain the ways we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a
behavior b. Internal and External Causation. Attribution theory suggests that when we
observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or
externally caused. 1) Behaviors that are believed to be under the personal control of the
individual are internally caused. 2) Behaviors that are believed to be outside of the personal
control of the individual are externally caused. The person is forced into the behavior by
outside causes. c. Distinctiveness, Consensus, and Consistency. 1) Distinctiveness refers to
whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations. a) Is the employee
who arrives late today also the one coworkers say regularly blows off commitments? (1)
What we want to know is whether this behavior is unusual. (2) If it is, we are likely to give it
an external attribution. (3) If it’s not, we will probably judge the behavior to be internal. 2)
Consensus is if everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way. a) The

11. behavior of a tardy employee meets this criterion if all employees who took the same route
to work were also late. b) From an attribution perspective, if consensus is high, you would
probably give an external attribution to the employee’s tardiness.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 3 c) If other employees who took
the same route made it to work on time, you would attribute his lateness to an internal
cause. 3) Consistency. a) An observer looks for consistency in a person’s actions. (1)
Coming in 10 minutes late for work is not perceived in the same way for an employee who
hasn’t been late for several months as it is for an employee who is late two or three times a
week. (2) The more consistent the behaviors, the more we are inclined to attribute it to
internal causes. d. Exhibit 6-1 summarizes the key elements in attribution theory. 1) It tells
us, for instance, that if an employee, Katelyn, generally performs at about the same level on
other related tasks as she does on her current task (low distinctiveness), other employees
frequently perform differently—better or worse—than Katelyn does on that current task
(low consensus), and Kim’s performance on this current task is consistent over time (high
consistency), anyone judging Katelyn’s work will likely hold her primarily responsible for
her task performance (internal attribution). 2) One of the most interesting findings from
attribution theory research is that errors or biases distort attributions. a) When we make
judgments about the behavior of other people, we tend to underestimate the influence of
external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors. (1) This
fundamental attribution error can explain why a sales manager is prone to attribute the
poor performance of her sales agents to laziness rather than to the innovative product line
introduced by a competitor. b) Individuals and organizations also tend to attribute their
own successes to internal factors such as ability or effort, while putting the blame for failure
on external factors such as bad luck or unproductive coworkers. (1) This is the self-serving
bias. c) The evidence on cultural differences in perception is mixed but generally indicates
that there are differences across cultures in the attributions people make. (1) Individuals
from Asian cultures tend to make group-based stereotypes, whereas Westerners tend to
focus on the individual. (2) However, while self-serving biases are less common in East
Asian cultures, they do still exist. c. Common Shortcuts in Judging Others. a. We use a
number of shortcuts when we judge others. 1) These techniques are frequently valuable:
they allow us to make accurate perceptions rapidly and provide valid data for making
predictions. a) Understanding these shortcuts can help you recognize when they can result
in significant distortions. b. Selective Perception. Selective perception allows us to speed-
read others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 4 1) Any characteristic that makes
a person, an object, or an event stand out will increase the probability that we will perceive
it. 2) It is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see; we can take in only certain
stimuli. a) This tendency explains why you’re more likely to notice cars like your own or
why a boss may reprimand some people and not others who are doing the same thing. b)
Because we can’t observe everything going on about us, we engage in selective perception.
3) Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusions from an
ambiguous situation. c. Halo Effect. Drawing an overall impression based on a single
characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance. 1) Halo effects can falsely

12. enhance or reduce the perceived overall characteristics of an individual. 2) This effect can
also result in a negative impression. d. Contrast Effect. Contrast effect can distort
perceptions. 1) We don’t evaluate a person in isolation. 2) Other persons we have recently
encountered influence our reaction to a person. e. Stereotyping. Judging an individual based
on the perception of a group to which the target belongs is known as stereotyping. 1) We
rely on generalizations every day because they help us make decisions quickly; they are a
means of simplifying a complex world. It’s less difficult to deal with an unmanageable
number of stimuli if we use heuristics or stereotypes. 2) The problem occurs, of course,
when we generalize inaccurately or too much. In organizations, we frequently hear
comments that represent stereotypes based on gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, and
even weight. 3) Stereotypes can be deeply ingrained and powerful enough to influence life-
and-death decisions. a) One study, controlling for a wide array of factors (such as
aggravating or mitigating circumstances), showed that the degree to which black
defendants in murder trials looked stereotypically black essentially doubled their odds of
receiving a death sentence if convicted. III. LINK BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL
DECISION MAKING A. Individuals in organizations make decisions, choices from among two
or more alternatives. B. Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem. a. That is, a
discrepancy exists between the current state of affairs and some desired state, requiring us
to consider alternative courses of action. b. Most problems don’t come neatly labeled
“problem.” a. One person’s problem is another person’s satisfactory state of affairs. b. So
awareness that a problem exists and that a decision might or might not be needed is a
perceptual issue. c. Every decision requires us to interpret and evaluate information.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 5 1) We typically receive data from
multiple sources and need to screen, process, and interpret it. 2) The decision maker’s
perceptions will answer that question, “Which data are relevant to the decision, and which
are not?” d. We also need to develop alternatives and evaluate their strengths and
weaknesses. 1) Again, the individual’s perceptual process will affect the final outcome. 2)
Finally, throughout the entire decision-making process, perceptual distortions often surface
that can bias analysis and conclusions. IV. DECISION MAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS A.
Business schools generally train students to follow rational decision-making models. a.
Although these models have considerable merit, they don’t always describe how people
actually make decisions. b. This is where OB enters the picture: to improve how we make
decisions in organizations, we must understand the decision-making errors people commit
(in addition to the perception errors we’ve discussed). B. The Rational Model, Bounded
Rationality, and Intuition a. Rational Decision Making. Making consistent, value-maximizing
choices within specified constraints. a. Rational decision-making model: This model has six
steps that lead to an optimal solution. 1) The Six Steps of the Model: a) Define the problem.
b) Identify decision criteria. c) Weight the previously identified criteria. d) Generate
possible alternatives. e) Rate each alternative upon each criterion. f) Compute the optimal
decision. 2) Assumptions of the Model: One of the reasons that this model is rarely fully
utilized in the real world is because the assumptions are almost never all met. a) Complete
knowledge. The decision maker is assumed to have complete knowledge of the situation. b)
Known options. The decision maker is assumed to be able to identify all relevant options in

13. an unbiased manner. c) Highest utility. The assumption is that the decision maker will
always choose the option with the highest utility. b. Bounded Rationality. Bounded
rationality refers to the limited information-processing capability of human beings that
makes it impossible to assimilate and understand all the information necessary to optimize.
1) So most people respond to a complex problem by reducing it to a level at which they can
readily understand it. 2) Also many problems likely don’t have an optimal solution because
they are too complicated to be broken down into the parameters of the rational decision-
making model. 3) So people satisfice; that is, they seek solutions that are satisfactory and
sufficient. c. Because the human mind cannot formulate and solve complex problems with
full rationality, we operate within the confines of bounded rationality.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 6 1) We construct simplified
models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their
complexity. 2) We can then behave rationally within the limits of the simple model. 3) To
use the rational model in the real world, you need to gather a great deal of information
about all the options, compute applicable weights, and then calculate values across a huge
number of criteria. a) All these processes can cost you time, energy, and money. b) And if
there are a great number of unknowns when it comes to weights and preferences, the fully
rational model may not be any more accurate than a best guess. c) Sometimes a fast-and-
frugal process of solving problems might be your best option. d. Intuition. Perhaps the least
rational way of making decisions is to rely on intuition. e. Intuitive decision making is an
unconscious process created from distilled experience. 1) Its defining qualities are that: a)
it occurs outside conscious thought; b) it relies on holistic associations, or links between
disparate pieces of information; c) it’s fast; d) and it’s affectively charged, meaning it
usually engages the emotions. f. Although intuition isn’t rational, it isn’t necessarily wrong.
g. Nor does it always operate in opposition to rational analysis; rather, the two can
complement each other. V. COMMON BIASES AND ERRORS IN DECISION MAKING a.
Decision makers engage in bounded rationality, but they also allow systematic biases and
errors to creep into their judgments. a. To minimize effort and avoid difficult trade-offs,
people tend to rely too heavily on experience, impulses, gut feelings, and convenient rules of
thumb. b. In many instances, these shortcuts are helpful. However, they can lead to severe
distortions of rationality. c. Following are the most common biases in decision making. 1)
Overconfidence Bias. a) The likelihood of overestimating the probability of being correct.
b) Tends to decrease as intellectual and interpersonal abilities rise: knowledge reduces
overconfidence. 2) Anchoring Bias. a) Anchoring bias is the tendency to fixate on initial
information and fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information. b) The first
information given forms the basis for the process, no matter what additional information is
provided later. 3) Confirmation Bias. a) Confirmation bias represents a specific case of
selective perception. Information used in decision making is selectively gathered:
information that reaffirms past choices is amplified, while data that contradicts those
choices is discounted. b) Information that agrees with preconceived views is accepted at
face value, while other information is criticized skeptically.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 7 4) Availability Bias. a) The
tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available to them

14. is availability bias. b) Emotional, vivid, or recent events tend to be more available in the
minds of decision makers and therefore carry a greater weight in decision making. c)
Causes people to overestimate the chances of unlikely but vivid events and underestimate
chances of more likely, but less dramatic, events. 5) Escalation of Commitment. a)
Escalation of commitment bias refers to staying with an initial decision through a series of
follow-on decisions, even when there is clear evidence that the initial decision was wrong.
b) This bias often occurs when the decision maker views himself or herself as responsible
for the failure. 6) Randomness Error. a) Most of us like to think we have some control over
our world. Our tendency to believe we can predict the outcome of random events is the
randomness error. 7) Risk Aversion. a) Nearly everyone but committed gamblers would
rather have the sure thing than a risky prospect. b) This tendency to prefer a sure thing over
a risky outcome is risk aversion. (1) Risk aversion has important implications. (2) To offset
the risks inherent in a commission-based wage, companies pay commissioned employees
considerably more than they do those on straight salaries. (3) Risk-averse employees will
stick with the established way of doing their jobs, rather than taking a chance on innovative
or creative methods. (4) Sticking with a strategy that has worked in the past does minimize
risk, but in the long run, it will lead to stagnation. (5) Ambitious people with power that can
be taken away (most managers) appear to be especially risk averse, perhaps because they
don’t want to lose on a gamble everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. (6) Chief
executive officers (CEOs) at risk of being terminated are also exceptionally risk averse, even
when a riskier investment strategy is in their firms’ best interests. 8) Hindsight Bias. a) The
tendency to believe (falsely) once the outcome of an event is actually known that the results
could have been accurately predicted is hindsight bias. b) This bias reduces our ability to
learn from the past and falsely inflates our opinion of our ability to make accurate
predictions. VI. INFLUENCES ON DECISION MAKING: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND
ORGANIZATIONAL CONSTRAINTS A. Individual Differences.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 8 a. Personality. Specific facets of
conscientiousness—particularly achievement striving and dutifulness—may affect
escalation of commitment. a. First, achievement-oriented people hate to fail, so they escalate
their commitment, hoping to forestall failure. b. Second, achievement-striving individuals
appear more susceptible to hindsight bias, perhaps because they have a need to justify their
actions. c. We don’t have evidence yet on whether dutiful people are immune to this bias. b.
Gender. Who makes better decisions, men or women? It depends on the situation. a. When
the situation isn’t stressful, decision making by men and women is about equal in quality. In
stressful situations, it appears that men become more egocentric and make more risky
decisions, while women become more empathetic and their decision making improves. c.
General Mental Ability. We know people with higher levels of general mental ability (GMA;
see Chapter 5) are able to process information more quickly, solve problems more
accurately, and learn faster, so you might expect them to be less susceptible to common
decision errors. a. However, GMA appears to help people avoid only some of them. 1) Smart
people are just as likely to fall prey to anchoring, overconfidence, and escalation of
commitment; probably because being smart doesn’t alert you to the possibility you’re too
confident or emotionally defensive. d. Cultural Differences. Cultures differ in time

15. orientation, the value they place on rationality, their belief in the ability of people to solve
problems, and their preference for collective decision making. a. Differences in time
orientation help us understand, for instance, why managers in Egypt make decisions at a
much slower and more deliberate pace than their U.S. counterparts. b. Second, while
rationality is valued in North America, that’s not true elsewhere. 1) A North American
manager might make a decision intuitively but know it’s important to appear to proceed in
a rational fashion because rationality is highly valued in the West. 2) In countries such as
Iran, where rationality is not paramount to other factors, efforts to appear rational are not
necessary. c. Third, some cultures emphasize solving problems, while others focus on
accepting situations as they are. 1) The United States falls in the first category; Thailand
and Indonesia are examples of the second. Because problem-solving managers believe they
can and should change situations to their benefit, U.S. managers might identify a problem
long before their Thai or Indonesian counterparts would choose to recognize it as such. d.
Fourth, decision making in Japan, a collectivistic society (see Chapter 4), is much more
group-oriented than in the United States, an individualistic society (see Chapter 4). e. The
Japanese value conformity and cooperation, so before Japanese CEOs make an important
decision, they collect a large amount of information to use in consensus-forming group
decisions.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 9 e. Nudging. Anyone who has ever
seen a commercial knows about nudging. Commercials represent one of the most outright
forms of an organization’s attempt to influence our perceptions (of a product) and our
decision (to acquire that product). a. Nudging has also been used positively in the
development of corporate social responsibility (CSR; see Chapter 3) initiatives to change
people’s expectations for organizations B. Organizational Constraints. a. Organizations can
constrain decision makers, creating deviations from the rational model. These constraints
can take the form of: b. Performance Evaluation Systems. People are strongly influenced in
their decision making by the criteria on which they are evaluated. c. Reward Systems. The
reward system influences which choices are preferable in terms of a personal payoff. d.
Formal Regulations. Rules and policies limit the decision maker’s choice of action. e.
System-Imposed Time Constraints. Explicit deadlines create time pressures and often make
it difficult to gather necessary information prior to making the decision. f. Historical
Precedence. Commitments that have already been made constrain current options. The
historic context of a decision limits available alternatives. VII. WHAT ABOUT ETHICS IN
DECISION MAKING? A. Three Ethical Decision Criteria: a. The first ethical yardstick is
utilitarianism, in which decisions are made solely on the basis of their outcomes, ideally to
provide the greatest good for the greatest number. a. This view dominates business
decision making. It is consistent with goals such as efficiency, productivity, and high profits.
b. Another ethical criterion is to make decisions consistent with fundamental liberties and
privileges, as set forth in documents such as the Bill of Rights. a. An emphasis on rights in
decision making means respecting and protecting the basic rights of individuals, such as the
right to privacy, free speech, and due process. b. This criterion protects whistleblowers
when they reveal an organization’s unethical practices to the press or government agencies,
using their right to free speech. c. A third criterion is to impose and enforce rules fairly and

16. impartially to ensure justice or an equitable distribution of benefits and costs. a. Union
members typically favor this view. b. It justifies paying people the same wage for a given
job regardless of performance differences and using seniority as the primary determination
in layoff decisions. B. Choosing Between Criteria. a. Decision makers, particularly in for-
profit organizations, feel comfortable with utilitarianism. b. The “best interests” of the
organization and its stockholders can justify a lot of questionable actions, such as large
layoffs. c. But many critics believe this perspective needs to change.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 10 a. Public concern about
individual rights and social justice suggests managers should develop ethical standards
based on nonutilitarian criteria. b. This presents a challenge because satisfying individual
rights and social justice creates far more ambiguities than utilitarian effects on efficiency
and profits. c. This helps explain why managers are increasingly criticized for their actions.
1) Raising prices, selling products with questionable effects on consumer health, closing
down inefficient plants, laying off large numbers of employees, moving production overseas
to cut costs, and similar decisions can be justified in utilitarian terms. 2) But that may no
longer be the single measure by which good decisions are judged. C. Behavioral Ethics. a.
Increasingly, researchers are turning to behavioral ethics—an area of study that analyzes
how people behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas. a. Their research tells us that
while ethical standards exist collectively in societies and organizations, and individually in
the form of personal ethics, we do not always follow ethical standards promoted by our
organizations, and we sometimes violate our own standards. b. Our ethical behavior varies
widely from one situation to the next. D. Lying. a. Are you a liar? Many of us would not like
to be labeled as a liar. But if a liar is merely someone who lies, we are all liars. b. We lie to
ourselves, and we lie to others. We lie consciously and unconsciously. We tell big lies and
create small deceptions. c. Lying is one of the top unethical activities we may indulge in
daily, and it undermines all efforts toward sound decision making. a. The truth is that one of
the reasons we lie is because lying is difficult for others to detect. In more than 200 studies,
individuals correctly identified people who were lying only 47 percent of the time, which is
less than random picking. b. Lying is deadly to decision making, whether we detect the lies
or not. Managers— and organizations—simply cannot make good decisions when facts are
misrepresented and people give false motives for their behaviors. VIII. CREATIVITY,
CREATIVE DECISION MAKING, AND INNOVATION IN ORGANIZATIONS a. Although the
rational decision-making model will often improve decisions, a decision maker also needs
creativity, the ability to produce novel and useful ideas. b. Novel ideas are different from
what’s been done before but are appropriate for the problem. c. Although all aspects of
organizational behavior have complexities, that is especially true for creativity. d. The three-
stage model of creativity: the core of the model is creative behavior, which has both causes
(predictions of creative behavior) and effects (outcomes of creative behavior). e. Creative
Behavior. Creative behavior occurs in four steps, each of which leads to the next (Exhibit 6-
4): a. Problem formulation. Any act of creativity begins with a problem that the behavior is
designed to solve. Thus, problem formulation is defined as the stage
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 11 of creative behavior in which we
identify a problem or opportunity that requires a solution as yet unknown. b. Information

17. gathering. Given a problem, the solution is rarely directly at hand. We need time to learn
more and to process that information. Thus, information gathering is the stage of creative
behavior when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an individual’s mind. c. Idea
generation. Once we have collected the relevant information, it is time to translate
knowledge into ideas. Thus, idea generation is the process of creative behavior in which we
develop possible solutions to a problem from relevant information and knowledge. 1)
Increasingly, idea generation is collaborative. d. Idea evaluation. Finally, it’s time to choose
from the ideas we have generated. Thus, idea evaluation is the process of creative behavior
in which we evaluate potential solutions to identify the best one. 1) Sometimes, the method
of choosing can be innovative. 2) Generally, you want those who evaluate ideas to be
different from those who generate them, to eliminate the obvious biases. f. Causes of
Creative Behavior. Having defined creative behavior, the main stage in the three-stage
model, we now look back to the causes of creativity: creative potential and creative
environment. a. Creative Potential. Is there such a thing as a creative personality? Indeed.
While creative genius — whether in science (Albert Einstein), art (Pablo Picasso), or
business (Steve Jobs) — is scarce, most people have some of the characteristics shared by
exceptionally creative people. 1) The more of these characteristics we have, the higher our
creative potential. b. Intelligence and Creativity. Intelligence is related to creativity. Smart
people are more creative because they are better at solving complex problems. However,
intelligent people may also be more creative because they have greater working memory;
that is, they can recall more information that is related to the task at hand. c. Personality
and Creativity. The Big Five personality trait of openness to experience correlates with
creativity, probably because open individuals are less conformist in action and more
divergent in thinking. (1) Other traits of creative people include proactive personality, self-
confidence, risk taking, tolerance for ambiguity, and perseverance. d. Expertise and
Creativity. Expertise is the foundation for all creative work and thus is the single most
important predictor of creative potential. 1. People with larger social networks have
greater exposure to diverse ideas and informal access to the expertise and resources of
others. e. Ethics and Creativity. Although creativity is linked to many desirable individual
characteristics, it is not correlated with ethicality. 1. People who cheat may actually be
more creative than those who behave ethically, according to recent research. 2. It may be
that dishonesty and creativity can both stem from a rule-breaking desire. g. Creative
Environment. Most of us have creative potential we can learn to apply, but as important as
creative potential is, by itself it is not enough. 1. We need to be in an environment where
creative potential can be realized.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 12 2. What environmental factors
affect whether creative potential translates into creative behaviors? a) First and perhaps
most important is motivation. If you aren’t motivated to be creative, it is unlikely you will
be. This link is true regardless of whether we are talking about student creativity or
employee creativity. b) It is also valuable to work in an environment that rewards and
recognizes creative work. The organization should foster the free flow of ideas, including
providing fair and constructive judgment. (1) Freedom from excessive rules encourages
creativity; employees should have the freedom to decide what work is to be done and how

18. to do it. h. Creative Outcomes (Innovation). The final stage in our model of creativity is the
outcome. Creative behavior does not always produce a creative or innovative outcome. 1.
An employee might generate a creative idea and never share it. Management might reject a
creative solution. Teams might squelch creative behaviors by isolating those who propose
different ideas. a) When people feel uncertain, their ability to see any idea as creative is
blocked. 2. We can define creative outcomes as ideas or solutions judged to be novel and
useful by relevant stakeholders. a) Novelty itself does not generate a creative outcome if it
isn’t useful. b) Thus, “off-the-wall” solutions are creative only if they help solve the problem.
c) The usefulness of the problem might be self-evident, or it might be considered successful
by stakeholders before the actual success can be known. 3. Creative ideas do not implement
themselves; translating them into creative outcomes is a social process that requires
utilizing other concepts addressed in this text, including power and politics, leadership, and
motivation. IX. SUMMARY A. Individuals base their behavior not on the way their external
environment actually is but rather on what they see or believe it to be. h. An understanding
of how people make decisions can be helpful for explaining and predicting their behavior. i.
But few important decisions are simple or unambiguous enough for the rational model’s
assumptions to apply. j. Thus, we find individuals looking for solutions that satisfice rather
than optimize, injecting biases and prejudices into the decision process, and relying on
intuition. B. Managers should encourage creativity in employees and teams to create a route
to innovative decision making. X. IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS A. Behavior follows
perception, so to influence employee behavior at work, assess how employees perceive
their work. Often behaviors we find puzzling can be explained by understanding the
initiating perceptions. B. Make better decisions by recognizing perceptual biases and
decision-making errors we tend to commit. Learning about these problems doesn’t always
prevent us from making mistakes, but it does help.
Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 13 C. Adjust your decision-making
approach to the national culture you’re operating in and to the criteria your organization
values. If you’re in a country that doesn’t value rationality, don’t feel compelled to follow
the decision-making model or to try to make your decisions appear rational. Adjust your
decision approach to ensure compatibility with the organizational culture. D. Combine
rational analysis with intuition. These are not conflicting approaches to decision making.
By using both, you can improve your decision-making effectiveness. E. Try to enhance your
creativity. Actively look for novel solutions to problems, attempt to see problems in new
ways, use analogies, and hire creative talent. Try to remove work and organizational
barriers that might impede your creativity.