How culture influences the cost of doing cross countries business

Think about it and be prepared for class on the 2 sept 9:30am

Shelton Dip student IB module case study

Case Study: Disney in France

Until 1992, the Walt Disney Company had experienced nothing but success in the theme park business. Its first park, Disneyland, opened in Anaheim, California, in 1955. Its theme song, "It's a Small World After All," promoted "an idealized vision of America spiced with reassuring glimpses of exotic cultures all calculated to promote heartwarming feelings about living together as one happy family. There were dark tunnels and bumpy rides to scare the children a little but none of the terrors of the real world . . . The Disney characters that everyone knew from the cartoons and comic books were on hand to shepherd the guests and to direct them to the Mickey Mouse watches and Little Mermaid records. The Anaheim park was an instant success.

In the 1970s, the triumph was repeated in Florida, and in 1983, Disney proved the Japanese also have an affinity for Mickey Mouse with the successful opening of Tokyo Disneyland. Having wooed the Japanese, Disney executives in 1986 turned their attention to France and, more specifically, to Paris, the self-proclaimed capital of European high culture and style. "Why did they pick France?" many asked. When word first got out that Disney wanted to build another international theme park, officials from more than 200 locations all over the world descended on Disney with pleas and cash inducements to work the Disney magic in their hometowns. But Paris was chosen because of demographics and subsidies. About 17 million Europeans live less than a two-hour drive from Paris. Another 310 million can fly there in the same time or less. Also, the French government was so eager to attract Disney that it offered the company more than $1 billion in various incentives, all in the expectation that the project would create 30,000 French jobs.

From the beginning, cultural gaffes by Disney set the tone for the project. By late 1986, Disney was deep in negotiations with the French government. To the exasperation of the Disney team, headed by Joe Shapiro, the talks were taking far longer than expected. Jean-Rene Bernard, the chief French negotiator, said he was astonished when Mr. Shapiro, his patience depleted, ran to the door of the room and, in a very un-Gallic gesture, began kicking it repeatedly, shouting, "Get me something to break!"

There was also snipping from Parisian intellectuals who attacked the transplantation of Disney's dream world as an assault on French culture; "a cultural Chernobyl," one prominent intellectual called it. The minister of culture announced he would boycott the opening, proclaiming it to be an unwelcome symbol of American clichés and a consumer society. Unperturbed, Disney pushed ahead with the planned summer 1992 opening of the $5 billion park. Shortly after Euro-Disneyland opened, French farmers drove their tractors to the entrance and blocked it.This globally televised act of protest was aimed not at Disney but at the US government, which had been demanding that French agricultural subsidies be cut. Still, it focused world attention upon the loveless marriage

of Disney and Paris.

Then there were the operational errors. Disney's policy of serving no alcohol in the park, since reversed caused astonishment in a country where a glass of wine for lunch is a given. Disney thought that Monday would be a light day for visitors and Friday a heavy one and allocated staff accordingly, but the reality was the reverse. Another unpleasant surprise was the hotel breakfast debacle. "We were told that Europeans 'don't take breakfast,' so we downsized the restaurants," recalled one Disney executive. "And guess what? Everybody showed up for breakfast. We were trying to serve 2,500 breakfasts in a 350-seat restaurant at some of the hotels. The lines were

horrendous. Moreover, they didn't want the typical French breakfast of croissants and coffee, which was our assumption. They wanted bacon and eggs." Lunch turned out to be another problem. "Everybody wanted lunch at 12:30. The crowds were huge. Our smiling cast members had to calm down surly patrons and engage in some 'behavior modification' to teach them that they could eat lunch at 11:00 AM or 2:00 PM."

There were major staffing problems too. Disney tried to use the same teamwork model with its staff that had worked so well in America and Japan, but it ran into trouble in France. In the first nine weeks of Euro-Disneyland's operation, roughly 1,000 employees, 10 percent of the total, left. One former employee was a 22-yearold medical student from a nearby town who signed up for a weekend job. After two days of "brainwashing," as he called Disney's training, he left following a dispute with his supervisor over the timing of his lunch hour.

Another former employee noted, "I don't think that they realize what Europeans are like. . . that we ask questions and don't think all the same way." One of the biggest problems, however, was that Europeans didn't stay at the park as long as Disney expected.

While Disney succeeded in getting close to 9 million visitors a year through the park gates, in line with its plans, most stayed only a day or two. Few stayed the four to five days that Disney had hoped for. It seems that most Europeans regard theme parks as places for day excursions. A theme park is just not seen as a destination for an extended vacation. This was a big shock for Disney. The company had invested billions in building luxury hotels next to the park-hotels that the day-trippers didn't need and that stood half empty most of the time. To make matters worse, the French didn't show up in the expected numbers. In 1994, only 40 percent of the park's visitors

were French. One puzzled executive noted that many visitors were Americans living in Europe or, stranger still, Japanese on a European vacation! As a result, by the end of 1994 Euro-Disneyland had cumulative losses of $2 billion.

At this point, Euro-Disney changed its strategy. First, the company changed the name to Disneyland Paris in an attempt to strengthen the park's identity. Second, food and fashion offerings changed. To quote one manager, "We opened with restaurants providing French-style food service, but we found that customers wanted self service like in the US parks. Similarly, products in the boutiques were initially toned down for the French market, but since then the range has changed to give it a more definite Disney image." Third, the prices for day tickets and hotel rooms were cut by one-third. The result was an attendance of 11.7 million in 1996, up from a low of 8.8 million in 1994.

Sources: P. Gumble and R. Turner, "Mouse Trap: Fans Like Euro Disney But Its Parent's Goofs Weigh the Park Down," The Wall Street

Journal, March 10, 1994, p. AI: R. J. Barnet and J. Cavanagh, Global Dreams (New York: Touchstone Books, 1994), pp. 33-34: J. Huey,

"Eisner Explains Everything," Fortune, April 17, 1995, pp. 45-68; R. Anthony, "Euro: Disney: The First 100 days," Harvard Business School

Case # 9-693013; and Charles Masters, "French Fall for the Charms of Disney," Sunday Telegraph, April 13, 1997, p. 21.

-End of Papers-

Theoretical framework
Key Variables Shaping Customer-Responsive Cultures
1. First is the type of employees themselves.
 Successful, service-oriented organizations hire employees who are outgoing and friendly.
2. Second is low formalization.
 Service employees need to have the freedom to meet changing customer
service requirements.
 Rigid rules, procedures, and regulations make this difficult.
3. Third is an extension of low formalization—it is the widespread use of empowerment.
 Empowered employees have the decision discretion to do what is necessary
to please the customer.
4. Fourth is good listening skills.
 Employees in customer-responsive cultures have the ability to listen to and
understand messages sent by the customer.
5. Fifth is role clarity.
 Service employees act as “boundary spanners” between the organization
and its customers.
 They have to acquiesce to the demands of both their employer and the customer.
6. Finally, customer-responsive cultures have employees who exhibit
organizational citizenship behavior.
 They are conscientious in their desire to please the customer.
(b)

There are a number of actions that management can take if it wants to make its culture more
customer-responsive.
1 Selection
• The place to start in building a customer-responsive culture is hiring
service-contact people with the personality and attitudes consistent with a
high service orientation.
• Studies show that friendliness, enthusiasm, and attentiveness in service employees positively affect customers’ perceptions of service quality.
• Managers should look for these qualities in applicants.
2 Training and Socialization
• The content of these training programs will vary widely but should focus on
improving product knowledge, active listening, showing patience, and
displaying emotions.
• All new service-contact people should be socialized into the organization’s
goals and values.
• Regular training updates in which the organization’s customer focused values
are restated and reinforced is an important strategy.
3 Structural Design
• Organization structures need to give employees more control.
• This can be achieved by reducing rules and regulations.
4 Empowerment
• Empowering employees with the discretion to make day-to-day decisions
about job-related activities.
5 Leadership
• Effective leaders in customer-responsive cultures deliver by conveying a
customer-focused vision and demonstrate by their continual behavior that
they are committed to customers.
6 Performance Evaluation
• Conduct performance appraisals based on customer-focused employee behaviors.
• Behavior-based evaluations appraise employees on the basis of how they behave
or act—on criteria such as effort, commitment, teamwork, friendliness, and the
ability to solve customer problems—rather than on the measurable
outcomes they achieve.
• Behavior-based evaluations give employees the incentive to engage in behaviors
that are conducive to improved service quality and gives employees m
Behavior-based evaluations give employees the incentive to engage in behaviors
that are conducive to improved service quality and gives employees more
control over the conditions that affect their performance evaluations.
7 Reward Systems
• If management wants employees to give good service, it has to reward good service.
• It should include ongoing recognition and it needs to make pay and
promotions contingent on outstanding customer service.

Organizational factors:
1 Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time period, work
overload, a demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant coworkers are a few examples.
2 Task demands are factors related to a person’s job.
 They include the design of the individual’s job (autonomy, task variety,
degree of automation), working conditions, and the physical work layout.
3 Role demands relate to pressures that are a function of the role an individual plays
in an organization.
 Role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy.
 Role overload is experienced when the employee is expected to do more than time permits.
 Role ambiguity is created when role expectations are not clearly understood.
4 Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees.
5 Organizational structure defines the level of differentiation in the organization, the
degree of rules and regulations, and where decisions are made.
 Excessive rules and lack of participation in decisions might be potential sources of stress.
6 Organizational leadership represents the managerial style of the organization’s
senior executives.
7 Organizations go through a cycle.
 They’re established, they grow, become mature, and eventually decline.
 The establishment and decline stages are particularly stressful.
 Stress tends to be least in maturity where uncertainties are at their lowest ebb.
b
Organizational approaches to managing stress:
1 Improved personnel selection and job placement
• Example:
2 Use of realistic goal setting, redesigning of jobs
• Example:
3 Training
• Example:
4 Increased employee involvement
• Example:
5 Improved organizational communication
• Example:
6 Establishment of corporate wellness programs.
• Example:

• Functional, constructive forms of conflict support the goals of the group and
improve its performance.
• Conflicts that hinder group performance are dysfunctional or destructive forms of conflict.
What differentiates functional from dysfunctional conflict depends the type of conflict.
A. Task conflict relates to the content and goals of the work.
• Low-to-moderate levels of task conflict are functional and consistently
demonstrate a positive effect on group performance because it stimulates
discussion, improving group performance.
B. Relationship conflict focuses on interpersonal relationships.
• These conflicts are almost always dysfunctional.
• The friction and interpersonal hostilities inherent in relationship conflicts increase
personality clashes and decrease mutual understanding.
C. Process conflict relates to how the work gets done.
• Low-levels of process conflict are functional and could enhance team performance.
• For process conflict to be productive, it must be kept low.
• Intense arguments create uncertainty
b
1. Preparation and planning:
• You want to prepare an assessment of what you think the other party to your
negotiation’s goals are.
• When you can anticipate your opponent’s position, you are better equipped to counter
his or her arguments with the facts and figures that support your position.
• Once you have gathered your information, use it to develop a strategy.
• Determine your and the other side’s Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA).
• Your BATNA determines the lowest value acceptable to you for a negotiated agreement.
• Any offer you receive that is higher than your BATNA is better than an impasse.
2. Definition of ground rules:
• Who will do the negotiating? Where will it take place? What time constraints, if any,
will apply?
• To what issues will negotiation be limited? Will there be a specific procedure to follow
if an impasse is reached?
• During this phase, the parties will also exchange their initial proposals or demands.
3. Clarification and justification:
• When initial positions have been exchanged, explain, amplify, clarify, bolster,
and justify your original demands
• This need not be confrontational.
• You might want to provide the other party with any documentation that helps
support your position.
4. Bargaining and problem solving:
• The essence of the negotiation process is the actual give and take in trying to hash
out an agreement.
• Concessions will undoubtedly need to be made by both parties.
5. Closure and implementation:
• The final step—formalizing the agreement that has been worked out and
developing any procedures that are necessary for implementation and monitoring
• Major negotiations will require hammering out the specifics in a formal contract.
• For most cases, however, closure of the negotiation process is nothing more formal
than a handshake

A. Transactional Leaders
• Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role
and task requirements.
• Characteristics of Transactional Leaders
❧ Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good
performance, recognizes accomplishments.
❧ Management by Exception (active): Watches and searches for deviations from rules and
standards, takes corrective action.
❧ Management by Exception (passive): Intervenes only if standards are not met.
❧ Laissez-Faire: Abdicates responsibilities, avoids making decisions.
• These kinds of leaders guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by
clarifying role and task requirements.
B. Transformational Leaders
• Leaders who provide individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation, and who possess
charisma.
• Characteristics of Transformational Leaders
❧ Charisma: Provides vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains respect and trust.
❧ Inspiration: Communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important
purposes in simple ways.
❧ Intellectual Stimulation: Promotes intelligence, rationality, and careful problem solving.
❧ Individualized Consideration: Gives personal attention, treats each employee individually,
coaches, advises.
• Transformational leaders inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the
organization.
• They change followers’ awareness of issues by helping them to look at old problems in new ways;
and they are able to excite, arouse, and inspire followers to put out extra effort to achieve group
goals.

• Transformational leadership is built on top of transactional leadership—it produces levels of follower
effort and performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone.
• Evidence indicates that transformational leadership is more strongly correlated with lower turnover
rates, higher productivity, and higher employee satisfaction.


b

A. Selection
• The entire process that organizations go through to fill management positions is essentially an
exercise in trying to identify individuals who will be effective leaders.
Items of consideration during selection include:
• Reviewing the specific requirements for the position. What knowledge, skills, and abilities are needed
to do the job effectively?
• Testing is useful for identifying and selecting leaders. Personality tests can be used to look for traits
associated with leadership—ambition and energy, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, selfconfidence, intelligence, and job-relevant knowledge.
• Testing to find a leadership-candidate’s score on self-monitoring. High self-monitors are likely to
outperform their low-scoring counterparts because the former is better at reading situations and
adjusting his or her behavior.
• Assess candidates for emotional intelligence. High EI should have an advantage, especially in
situations requiring transformational leadership.
• Interviews provide an opportunity to evaluate leadership candidates.
B. Training
• People are not equally trainable. Leadership training is likely to be more successful with individuals
who are high self-monitors than with low self-monitors.
• It may be optimistic to believe that we can teach “vision-creation,” but we can train people to develop
“an understanding about content themes critical to effective visions.”
• We also can teach skills such as trust building, mentoring, and situational-analysis skills.
• There is evidence suggesting that behavioral training through modeling exercises can increase an
individual’s ability to exhibit charismatic leadership qualities.

Group vs. the Individual decision making
A. Strengths of group decision-making:
 Groups generate more complete information and knowledge.
 They offer increased diversity of views.
 This opens up the opportunity for more approaches and alternatives to be considered.
 The evidence indicates that a group will almost always outperform even
the best individual.
 Groups lead to increased acceptance of a solution.
B. Weaknesses of group decision-making:
 They are time consuming.
 There is a conformity pressure in groups.
 Group discussion can be dominated by one or a few members.
 Group decisions suffer from ambiguous responsibility.
C. Effectiveness and efficiency:
 Whether groups are more effective than individuals depends on the criteria you use.
 In terms of accuracy, group decisions will tend to be more accurate.
 On the average, groups make better-quality decisions than individuals.
 If decision effectiveness is defined in terms of speed, individuals are superior.
 If creativity is important, groups tend to be more effective than individuals.  If effectiveness means the degree of acceptance the final solution achieves,
groups are better.

b
1. Selection:
• Some people already possess the interpersonal skills to be effective team players.
Care should be taken to ensure that candidates could fulfill their team roles
as well as technical requirements.
• Many job candidates do not have team skills:
• This is especially true for those socialized around individual contributions.
• The candidates can undergo training to “make them into team players.”
• In established organizations that decide to redesign jobs around teams, it
should be expected that some employees will resist being team players and may
be un-trainable.
2. Training:
• A large proportion of people raised on the importance of individual
accomplishment can be trained to become team players.
• Workshops help employees improve their problem-solving, communication,
negotiation, conflict-management, and coaching skills.
• Employees also learn the five-stage group development model.
3. Rewards:
• The reward system needs to encourage cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones.
• Promotions, pay raises, and other forms of recognition should be given to individuals
for how effective they are as a collaborative team member.
• This does not mean individual contribution is ignored; rather, it is balanced
with selfless contributions to the team.
• There are other intrinsic rewards to being on a team.
 One example is that teams provide camaraderie:
 It is exciting and satisfying to be an integral part of a successful team.
 The opportunity to engage in personal development

Big-Five model - The five basic dimensions are:
1. Extroversion. Comfort level with relationships.
• Extroverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to
be reserved, timid, and quiet.
2. Agreeableness. Individual’s propensity to defer to others.
• High agreeableness people—cooperative, warm, and trusting.
• Low agreeableness people—cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.
3. Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability.
• A high conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent.
• Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized,
and unreliable.
4. Emotional stability. A person’s ability to withstand stress.
• People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure.
• Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
5. Openness to experience. The range of interests and fascination with novelty.
• Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive.
• Those at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find
comfort in the familiar.
The results showed that conscientiousness predicted job performance for all occupational groups.
• Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan,
organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-oriented tend to have higher job performance.
• Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge

(i) Locus of control
• Locus of control - The degree to which people believe they are masters of their own fate.
• Internals: People who believe that they are masters of their own fate.
 Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them.
• Externals: People who believe they are pawns of fate.
 Individuals who believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces
such as luck or chance.
• Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have
higher absenteeism rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and are less
involved on their jobs than are internals.
• Internals generally perform better on their jobs, but one should consider
differences in jobs.
• Internals search more actively for information before making a decision,
are more motivated to achieve, and make a greater attempt to control their
environment, therefore, internals do well on sophisticated tasks.
• Internals are more suited to jobs that require initiative and independence of action.
• Externals are more compliant and willing to follow directions, and do well on jobs
that are well structured and routine and in which success depends heavily on
complying with the direction of others.
(ii) Type A personality
• A Type A personality is “aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle
to achieve more and more in less and less time, and, if required to do so,against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons.’’
• They are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly, are impatient with the rate
at which most events take place, are doing do two or more things at once and cannot
cope with leisure time.
• They are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many
or how much of everything they acquire.
• Type A’s operates under moderate to high levels of stress.
• They subject themselves to continuous time pressure, are fast workers,
quantity over quality, work long hours, and are also rarely creative.
• Their behavior is easier to predict than that of Type Bs

1

(i)  Satisfaction and productivity

•           Happy workers are not necessarily productive workers—the evidence

            suggests that   productivity is likely to lead to satisfaction.

•           At the organization level, there is renewed support for the original

            satisfaction-performance relationship. 

•           It seems organizations with more satisfied workers as a whole are more

             productive organizations.

(ii)  Satisfaction and absenteeism

•           We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. 

            The more satisfied you are, the less likely you are to miss work.

•           It makes sense that dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, but

            other factors have an impact on the relationship and reduce the correlation coefficient. 

•           For example, you might be a satisfied worker, yet still take a “mental health day”

             to head for the beach now and again.

(iii)  Satisfaction and turnover

•           Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger

            than what we found for absenteeism.

•           Other factors such as labor market conditions, expectations about

            alternative job opportunities, and length of tenure with the organization

            are important constraints on the actual decision to leave one’s current job.

•           Evidence indicates that an important moderator of the satisfaction-turnover

             relationship is the employee’s level of performance.

•           Organizations take actions to retain high performers and to weed out lower performers.

(b)       

There are a number of ways employees can express dissatisfaction:

•           Exit: Behavior directed toward leaving the organization, including

            looking for a new position as well as resigning.

•           Voice: Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions,

            including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors,

            and some forms of union activity.

•           Loyalty: Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve,

            including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism,

            and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.”

•           Neglect: Passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism

             or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.

•           Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables

            —productivity,  absenteeism, and turnover.

•           Voice and loyalty are constructive behaviors allow individuals to tolerate

            unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions.

Case study q5 notes

The supporting facts from the case of the argument that the approach of OB is from a
contingency perspective, supports Ms. Jenifer is the types of study variables. Independent X is
the presumed cause of the change in the dependent variables in this case the independent X is Ms
Jennifer. Dependent Y; people who has this types of behaviour is the response to X( the
independent variables) and this is what the Organisation Behaviour want to predicts or explain in
this case the dependent Y is the workers by understanding this types of variable Ms. Jennifer
by how she improved turnover, productivities. She improved the job satisfaction, she gave the
worker more motivation on their job then it is improved job performance. She analyzed the large
database of information that UPS had on her districts employees and made many changes to
adding skills and career development classes, improved conditions in the warehouse and
buildings and finally expanded supervisor training. The approach made a statement that she was
responsible of determining which managerial approach effective in her company situation and
cutting the turnover rate. It resulted from a fifty percent turnover rate per year to six percent and
an annual savings of one million dollars. Buffalo district gained a twenty percent reduction in
lost workdays and finally dropping from four percent to one percent in packages delivered on the
wrong day or at the wrong time.
Predictive Ability

Assignment notes

1.            In dollars-and-cents’ terms, why did Jennifer Shroeger want to reduce turnover??

•              Turnover is associated with increased costs such as recruiting, hiring, and training

•              Reduced turnover improves productivity, thus lowering costs

•              Reduced turnover reflects more motivated employees and therefore, more safety-conscious thus lowering the costs associated with lost-time accidents.

2.            What are the implications from this case to motivating part-time employees?

•              Matching people’s needs and expectations relative to the job is of primary importance.

•              Recognizing that individuals have differing needs helps a manager to provide the appropriate feedback and environment to enhance motivation

•              Part-time employees’ needs and expectations may be significantly different than those of full-time employees.

3.            What are the implications form this case for managing in future years when there may be a severe labor shortage?

•              Organizations that put people first, will have a better chance of attracting and retaining workers.

•              Focusing on the people-skills aspect of management may provide a competitive advantage

4.            Is it unethical to teach supervisors “to demonstrate interest in their workers as individuals?  Explain.

•              No.  Each individual has different needs, wants, and desires.  The diversity in any work organization makes it important for supervisors to get to know workers as individuals.  It would be unethical not to be interested in workers as individuals. 

5.            What facts in this case support the argument that OB should be approached from a contingency perspective?

•              There are five distinct groups of employees with different characteristics and different needs (for example college students as a group were interested in building skills that could later be applied in their careers.

•              Prior to the turnover reduction program, the turnover rate was 50%

•              After implementing the changes in hiring, communication, and supervisory training, the turnover rate was slashed to 6%.

Transactional Leaders

• Leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role
and task requirements.
• Characteristics of Transactional Leaders
❧ Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good
performance, recognizes accomplishments.
❧ Management by Exception (active): Watches and searches for deviations from rules and
standards, takes corrective action.
❧ Management by Exception (passive): Intervenes only if standards are not met.
❧ Laissez-Faire: Abdicates responsibilities, avoids making decisions.
• These kinds of leaders guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by
clarifying role and task requirements.

Conscientiousness THAT predictS job performance BETTER

The results showed that conscientiousness predicted job performance for all occupational groups.
• Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan,
organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement-oriented tend to have higher job performance.
• Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge

Type A personality

Type A personality
• A Type A personality is “aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle
to achieve more and more in less and less time, and, if required to do so,against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons.’’
• They are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly, are impatient with the rate
at which most events take place, are doing do two or more things at once and cannot
cope with leisure time.
• They are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many
or how much of everything they acquire.
• Type A’s operates under moderate to high levels of stress.
• They subject themselves to continuous time pressure, are fast workers,
quantity over quality, work long hours, and are also rarely creative.
• Their behavior is easier to predict than that of Type Bs.

Locus of control

• Locus of control - The degree to which people believe they are masters of their own fate.
• Internals: People who believe that they are masters of their own fate.
 Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them.
• Externals: People who believe they are pawns of fate.
 Individuals who believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces
such as luck or chance.
• Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have
higher absenteeism rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and are less
involved on their jobs than are internals.
• Internals generally perform better on their jobs, but one should consider
differences in jobs.
• Internals search more actively for information before making a decision,
are more motivated to achieve, and make a greater attempt to control their
environment, therefore, internals do well on sophisticated tasks.
• Internals are more suited to jobs that require initiative and independence of action.
• Externals are more compliant and willing to follow directions, and do well on jobs
that are well structured and routine and in which success depends heavily on
complying with the direction of others

Srudent from Sipmm Economics class

From: Lakshmi Kaur
To: Ahhuat Ong
Sent: Saturday, 3 August 2013, 10:05
Subject: Re: 

Ok noted Sir. But so far, they have not changed anything you set like exam paper etc. Hope they will not change the marks you gave me.:)  

You are the best!

Sent from my iPhone