Current Topics in HRM

1
Current Topics in HRM
Week 4 Personality and HRM
2
Personality

• The tendency to think and behavior in a certain
  way
• Big Five personality traits
• Neuroticism
• Extraversion
• Conscientiousness
• Agreeableness
• Openness to experience
• General intelligence, g

3
Why is Personality Important?

• Barrick and Mount found that conscientiousness is
  the most consistent predictor of job performance
• The relationship is stronger when job autonomy is
  high

4
Why is Intelligence important?

• General intelligence, or g
• Deductive, inductive, mechanical, memory,
  numerical, perceptual, reasoning, spatial, verbal
• Correlated with training performance at .76
  with job performance at .47

5
Summary Figure
Problem solving requirement
Training Performance
Job Knowledge
Job Performance
g
Conscientiousness
Job autonomy
6
Assessments of Intelligence and HRM

• How do we measure these two sets of internal
  attributes?
• Paper-and-Pencil tests
• Objective evidence (e.g., grades)
• Subjective evaluation (e.g., interviews)

7
Other areas personality may play a role

• Job choice
• Preferences for organizational culture
• Socialization
• Proactivity--the tendency to take action and
  cause changes rather than merely react to changes
• Career success
• Extraversion, conscientiousness
• Job satisfaction
• Neuroticism, extraversion
• Employee withdrawal
• Neuroticism, openness to experience,
  conscientiousness

8
Other areas personality may play a role

• Team performance
• Creativity
• Counterproductive behavior
• Achievement motivation

9
Implications for HRM

• Consider personality as an influential factor
• Identify strong and weak situations
• Strong situation
• Weak situation
• Different types of intelligence
• Personality of middle and senior managers
• Applicant faking of personality

10
Extra personality profiles

• Locus of control
• Extent to which
• Self-esteem
• Extent to which
• Self-monitoring
• Extent to which
• Type A personality
• Impatient, time urgent

11
Some Socialization Tactics

• Interviewers communicating the values
• Company pamphlets
• Company websites
• Site visit
• Welcoming luncheon
• Introducing slogans
• Agents
• Supervisor mentors
• Peers group members
• Monthly Newsletter