Mgmt1001 Topic 3 Tutorial

Topic 3: Attitudes, Perception, Personality

i. What behavioural predictions might you make if you knew that an employee had

a. An external locus of control?

b. A low Mach score?

c. Low self-esteem?

d. High self-monitoring tendencies?

a. If an employee had external locus of control, they believe that their lives are controlled by outside forces. As a result of this personality attribute, the employee is expected to have less satisfaction at work. They blame poor performance evaluation on boss prejudice, their co-workers or other events outside their control, instead of explaining it in terms of their own actions.

b. Mach (Machiavellianism) is a measure of the degree to which people are pragmatic, maintain emotional distance and believe that ends can justify means. A low Mach score predicts an employee to less pragmatic and more emotional towards their work.

c. An employee with low self-esteem is more likely to dislike himself or herself. They are more susceptible to external influence, such as the need to seek approval from others, and proneness to conform. These employees are unlikely to take risks and more likely to choose conventional jobs.

d. Self-monitoring measures an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external, situational factors. High self-monitoring tendencies show considerable adaptability in adjusting behaviour to external, situational factors. These employees are capable of presenting striking contradictions between their public and private selves.

ii. Explain in detail the mechanism by which job characteristics influence employee outcomes. Additionally, if you increased the employee’s skill variety in his or her job, what effect would it have on his or her knowledge of the actual results of the work activities?

Desirable employee outcomes emerge when all three of the psychological states are experienced. These states are that the employee must experience the work as meaningful;...