Deck 2: Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values

Question 1

Describe three ethical principles and discuss four factors that influence ethical behavior.

Answer 1

Ethics refers to the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad. Three ethical principles are utilitarianism, individual rights, and distributive justice. Ethical behavior is influenced by the degree to which an issue demands the application of ethical principles (moral intensity), the individual's ability to recognize the presence and relative importance of an ethical issue (ethical sensitivity), situational forces, and the extent to which people actively evaluate their decisions and actions against ethical and personal values (i.e., mindfulness). Ethical conduct at work is supported by codes of ethical conduct, ethics training, mechanisms for communicating ethical violations, the organization's culture, and the leader's behavior.

Question 2

Review five values commonly studied across cultures.

Answer 2

Five values that are often studied across cultures are individualism (valuing independence and personal uniqueness); collectivism (valuing duty to in-groups and to group harmony); power distance (valuing unequal distribution of power); uncertainty avoidance (tolerating or feeling threatened by ambiguity and uncertainty); and achievement-nurturing orientation (valuing competition vs. cooperation). Although cross-cultural knowledge is valuable, we need to be concerned that some of this knowledge is based on non-representative samples, old information, and lack of sensitivity to cultural differences within countries.

Question 3

Describe the four factors that directly influence individual behavior and performance.

Answer 3

Four variables-motivation, ability, role perceptions, and situational factors-which are represented by the acronym MARS, directly influence individual behavior and performance. Motivation represents the forces within a person that affect his or her direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior; ability includes both the natural aptitudes and the learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task; role perceptions are the extent to which people understand the job duties (roles) assigned to them or expected of them; situational factors include conditions beyond the employee's immediate control that constrain or facilitate behavior and performance.

Question 4

Summarize the five types of individual behavior in organizations.

Question 5

Describe personality and discuss how the "Big Five" personality dimensions and four MBTI types relate to individual behavior in organizations.

Question 6

Summarize Schwartz's model of individual values and discuss the conditions under which values influence behavior.