The issue of organizational behavior is often addressed without the question of where this organizational behavior comes from. Organizations are ultimately made up of individuals, and this means that individual behavior will ultimately influence organizational behavior. Individual traits that may influence organizational behavior on either a small or large scale include individual attitudes, values, personality, ethics, and cultural differences. Although each of these variables is more influential in individuals with higher status within the organization, even at the lowest levels these issues may make a difference, particularly in the performance of individual teams within the organization.
The attitude of the individual may influence organizational behavior, particularly in individuals that hold responsibility for creating the corporate culture, such as the top management (Robbins & Judge, 2006). For example, it has been found that a materialistic personal attitude in an employee will have a negative impact on their organizational citizenship behavior (corporate social responsibility initiatives) (Torlak & Koc, 2007). However, it is not only the employee’s own organizational citizenship that may suffer; bad attitudes have been shown to affect the organizational citizenship of other employees as well (Tepper, Hoobler, Duffy, & Ensley, 2004).
One of the biggest determining factors of organizational behavior is values and ethics of the individuals involved in the organization. The values and ethics of the individual are in many ways similar in regard to their effect on the organization. One such impact is in employee attitudes of organizational justice. Organizational justice is the perception that the organization conducts itself in a fair manner, according to the individual. (Viswesvaran & Ones, 2002) This perception varies not only on the treatment each individual receives from the organization, but also depending on their individual values and ethics as well as other factors. For example, an individual that expects that the decisions regarding promotions will be made on the basis of seniority due to her own values and ethics may experience a reduced sense of organizational justice if promotions are not performed in this manner. The importance of values and ethics is particularly true at the top levels of the organization, because this is the level at which individual values are directly translated into organizational values, both through the use of formal mechanisms such as corporate codes of ethics and through the use of informal mechanisms such as leadership modeling and corporate culture construction (Doconinck, 2003).
The individual’s personality is also one of the determining factors of organizational participation and organizational citizenship behavior, which affects the organization as a whole. Some of the personality factors that may influence the organizational citizenship behavior include optimism/pessimism, positivity/negativity, work/social, and other orientations that may affect the way in which the organization functions (Penner, Midili, & Kegelmeyer, 1997). For example, an individual that engages in persistent negative social behaviors such as gossiping or trying to create conflict will have a negative effect on the organization; this negative effect may far outweigh the individual’s nominal position within the organization. Conversely, the positive attitude on the part of the individual can also have a disproportionately positive effect; this effect can be seen in every organization with a friendly receptionist or a human resources manager who remembers the name of all the employees (Penner, Midili, & Kegelmeyer, 1997). Personality effects are one of the least predictable variants in organizational behavior, but may be one of the highest impact.
Cultural differences are likely to have a large effect on organizational behavior. One difference that is likely is what kind of organization the employee expects. For example, employees that tend to expect a high power distance from their manager, as is expected in many Asian cultures, will not respond well to the Western-style hands on management (Pasa, 2000). If this cultural mismatch occurs, it is likely that the individuals will change the outcomes of the organizational behavior rather than the other way around. Cultural differences also influence expectations of things like required benefits and sick leave and the potential that a given employee will be laid off or fired; if the cultural differences within an organization regarding these issues are not addressed, it may affect the behavior of the organization. Of course, the cultural background of the manager may also have the same effect on the organization; if the manager is inflexible in his or her cultural expectations, this will have a negative effect on the organization by reducing the effectiveness of the teams and employee morale, increasing intent to turnover and engaging other negative organizational behaviors (Robbins & Judge, 2006).
The individual attributes described above all have an effect on the organization as a whole, and all have an effect on the organizational behavior of their coworkers and others. However, it should be stated that the largest effects of these factors is likely to be within the top ranks of management, in which corporate culture is determined and goals and priorities are set. If the organization’s leaders do not have a positive attitude, a determined ethics and values statement, and appropriate personal attributes and cultural sensitivities, it is unlikely that the organization as a whole is likely to be successful. In the end, the organizational behavior is based on individual behavior, but it is larger than any single individual – in order for the single individual to have an impact on the organization, he or she must be able to transmit this impact through the organization.
Bibliography
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Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2006). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Tepper, B. J., Hoobler, J., Duffy, M. K., & Ensley, M. D. (2004). Moderators of the relationships between coworker’s organizational citizenship behavior and fellow employees’ attitudes. Journal of Applied Psychology , 89 (3), 455-65.
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Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (2002). Examining the construct of organizational justice: A meta-analytic examination of relations with work attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Business Ethics , 38 (3), 193-203.