Personality and Individual Values
Introduction
Personality or individual values play a critical role in the determination of behavior in controlling, organizing, managing, and making critical decisions within the organizations or daily activities at the personal levels. This research paper evaluates the peer-reviewed literature in relation to personality and individual values. It focuses on the influence of personality and individual behavior in the context of management. The research highlights the key authors to the topic, discusses the principal findings, common trends and emerging debates with reference to personality or individual values. The research paper also seeks to illustrate the limitations in the execution of the study before development of effective recommendation for the future experiments.
Key Authors
Several key authors subscribe to the study of personality or individual values as influencers of behavior within the organization and the daily activities. Some of the key authors in the study of personality values include Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Eric Erikson, and John Watson. Other authors in the same field of study include jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, Hebert Simon, and David Buss. These key authors subscribes to different theories of personality or individual values in the form of unique theories. Some of the theories developed by these authors in the illustration of personality values include cognitive, psychoanalytic, neo-psychoanalytic, behaviorist, biological, interactionist, humanistic, and trait.
Overview of the Topic
Personality refers to the stable feelings, thoughts, and behavioral patterns that contribute towards the definition of an individual. Different research studies illustrate that each of the individuals has a unique personality that is vital in the differentiation of the person from the rest of the group. Personality values play a critical role in the differentiation of employees from the rest of the workforce thus a crucial tool in the aspect of management. Personality values determine the behavior of an individual in any context thus the opportunity to predict the behavior of employees by the management. For managers to manage relevant organizations effectively, it is vital to understand unique personality values of the employees. This is essential in the placement of individuals on relevant jobs or positions within the organization in the context.
Identify main issues, findings and common themes or trends.
From this perspective, personality or individual values are critical and essential in the aspect of management thus the need to study the underlying impact of the concepts on the production and output of the business entities. Personality changes and varies with age and environment as in most cases illustrated by studies. The study of personality values would enhance the output of the management of any business entity in that the organization will have the opportunity to understand and maximize behavior among the workforce.
Current Debate
Several debates surround personality or individual values as influencers of behavior among individuals. One of the most common debates surrounding the issue focus on the personality or individual values as having a great impact on the behavior of the employees within the organization (Ilie et al, 2006). This debate draws yes, and no proposals depending on the theory subscription thus the opportunity to enhance the concept of employee behavior under the influence of such values. One of the key proposals in relation to this debate indicates that the behavior of employees is under the influence of the expectations, duties, and obligations of the workforce. The alternative to this proposal indicates that personality or individual values have a great impact or influence jobs that demand autonomy and freedom (Mayer et al, 2007). The other debate or current trend in the study of personality or individual values focuses on the availability of the traits in influencing behavior. The current debate focuses on the determination of the number of personality or individual traits. The debate also contributes towards the determination or identification of the personality or individual values.
Major Findings
In relation to these current debates, researchers identify numerous personality or individual values in the context of the social, economic, and political spheres of society. Despite these findings, the studies indicate that the numerous personality or individual values point towards five critical values (Judge, 2002). This is an indication and the development of the term “the big five personality traits” to demonstrate key findings in the examination of the personality or individual values. This is an indication of the coining or development of new theories in relation to the study of personality or individual values in the context of management of the organization or business entity. The big five personality values include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Zhao, 2006).
From these findings, openness refers to the ability illustrating curiosity, intellectual, and creativity levels of an individual (Baer, 2006). It determines the capacity of an individual to incorporate or integrate new ideas to the existing knowledge by the person in question. Openness values seem to have significant influence in the context of flexible environment thus adoption and integration of new ideas. In the organization, this value enables employees to learn emerging skills thus thrive in the training exercises. This is because they apply their value to absorb new information and feedback for the enhancement of performance thus the opportunity to increase the output of the organization. From this perspective, it is ideal to note that personality will influence behavior of the employee in the context of an organization (Wanberg, 2000).
Conscientiousness applies to the organization, punctuality, orientation, and dependability levels of an individual while addressing the expectations of the business entity (Roberts, 2006). This personality or individual value has a direct relationship to the output within the organization. It reflects one of the desired values appealing to the managers or organization thus the opportunity to maximize the opportunities in achieving the targets and standards of the company. This value tends to focus on the details of the scenario rather than the entire picture thus potential limit to the outcome of the production levels.
Extraversion refers to social or interaction levels of an individual. These traits include outgoing, socializing, and talkative. These values are vital in the context of sales employment opportunities that require sufficient interaction with the consumers (Klein et al, 2004). Managers also need to adopt and integrate these values in order to enhance quality interaction with the employees or workforce and other business stakeholders. These values are also critical towards the achievement of success in the exercises such as interviews. Agreeableness indicates the concept that enables an individual to tolerate, express kindness, sensitivity, and warmth in numerous situations. This illustration reflects on the ability of an individual to get along with other in the context of the organization or daily activities in the social lives (LePine, 2003). Such values enable employees to thrive in hostile environments since they have the ability to withstand or tolerate external influence in the achievement of the targets.
The fifth trait in the findings focuses on neuroticism. This illustrates the concept of anxiety, irritability, and temperamental reactions by an individual in relation to the environment. Individuals displaying such values tend to possess emotional challenges thus undesirable for the enhancement of performance by the organization. Managers with this level of value or personality develop biasness and unfair environment while handling workforce issues. Other critical findings in relation to this topic include the development of self-esteem, proactive values, self-efficacy, and self-monitoring to supplement the concept of the big five values (Brown, 2006). These findings are in accordance with the existing theories thus the ability to develop quality or effective conclusions.
What are the strengths/limitations of the research?
This research paper relies on effective literature review thus has the ability to further the existing body of knowledge in the personality or individual values issues. Integration of numerous peer-reviewed literatures is an indication of minimization of the aspect of biasness in the data and research exercise. Inadequate sources of information for the development of this research create limitations in the development of theories.
Recommendation
In future research exercises, in the topic of the personality or individual values, it is essential to adopt wider research questions and concepts to incorporate much information. This will facilitate the development of theories.
Conclusion
Personality or individual values offer adequate opportunity to differentiate an individual from the rest. In the context of an organization, personality or individual values play a critical role in the determination of behavior thus critical issue in the concept of management (Certo, 2005). Some of the critical values that play critical roles within the context of an organization include neuroticism, openness, extraversion, agreeable, and conscientious values (Zimmerman, 2008).
References
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