Chapter 3

FOUNDATIONS OF
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
 3.1 Diversity
in Organizations
• We aren’t all the same. This is obviousenough, but
managers sometimes forgetthat they need to
recognize and capitalize on hesedifferences to get
the mostfrom their employees.
• Effective diversity management increases an
organization’saccess to the widest possible pool of
skills, abilities, and ideas. Managersalso need to
recognize that differences among people can lead
to miscommunication,misunderstanding, and
conflict.
 Levels of Diversity
• Demographics mostly reflect surface level
diversity , not thoughts and feelings, and can
lead employees to perceive one another
through stereotypes and assumptions.
• However, evidence has shown that as people
get to know one another, they become less
concerned about demographic differences if
they see themselves as sharing more
important characteristics, such as personality
and values, that represent deep-level diversity
• Discrimination
• Although diversity does present many opportunities for
organizations, effective diversity management also
means working to eliminate unfair discrimination .
• To discriminate is to note a difference between things,
which in itself isn’t necessarily bad.
• Usually when we talk about discrimination, though, we
mean allowing our behavior to be influenced by
stereotypes about groups of people.
• Rather than looking at individual characteristics, unfair
discrimination assumes everyone in a group is the
same. This discrimination is often very harmful to
organizations and employees
 Forms of Discrimination

Type of Discrimination Definition & examples

• Discriminatory policies or • Actions taken by representatives of the
organization that deny equal
practices opportunity or unequal rewards for
performance
• Sexual harassment
• Unwanted sexual advances and other
verbal or physical conduct of a sexual
nature that create a hostile or offensive
work environment
• Intimidation • Overt threats or bullying directed at
members of specific groups of
• Mockery and insults employees
• Jokes or negative stereotypes; sometimes
the result of jokes taken too far
• Exclusion • Exclusion of certain people from job
opportunities, social events, discussions,
or informal mentoring; can occur
• Incivility unintentionally
• Disrespectful treatment, including
behaving in an aggressive manner
interrupting the person, or ignoring his or
her opinions
 Biographical Characteristics
• Biographical characteristics such as age, gender, race, disability, and
length of service are some of the most obvious ways employees differ.
• Age
• The relationship between age and job performance is likely to be an
issueof increasing importance during the next decade for at least
three reasons.
• First, belief is widespread that job performance declines with
increasing age.
• Regardless of whether this is true, a lot of people believe it and act on
it.
• Second, the workforce is aging. Many employers recognize that older
workers represent a huge potential pool of high-quality applicants.
• older workers have a strong work ethic, many skills, and job
knowledge that they can share with youngers-workers
• Sex
• There are no consistent male–female differences in problem-
solving ability, analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation,
sociability, or learning ability.
• Psychological studies have found women are more agreeable
and willing to conform to authority, whereas men are more
aggressive and more likely to have expectations of success,
but those differences are minor
• What about absence and turnover rates? Are women less
stable employees than men? First, evidence from a study of
nearly 500,000 professional employees
• indicates significant differences, with women more likely to
turn over than men. Women also have higher rates of
absenteeism than men do.
• Race and Ethnicity
• Race is a controversial issue. In many cases, even
bringing up the topic of race and ethnicity is enough to
create an uncomfortable silence.
• Indeed, evidence suggests that some people find
interacting with other racial groups uncomfortable
unless there are clear behavioral scripts to guide their
behavior
Race and ethnicity have been studied as they relate to
employment outcomes such as hiring decisions,
performance evaluations, pay, and workplace
discrimination
• Disability
• Making inferences about the relationship between
disability and employment outcomes is difficult
because the term disability is so broad.
• The U.S.Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission classifies a person as disabled who has
any physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits one or more major life activities.
Examples include missing limbs, seizure
disorder,Down Syndrome, deafness, schizophrenia,
alcoholism, diabetes, and chronic back pain.
• Other Biographical Characteristics: Tenure, Religion,
Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity
• Tenure
• seniority as time on a particular job, the most
recent evidence demonstrates a positive
relationship between seniority and job productivity.
So tenure, expressed as work experience, appears
to be a good predictor of employee productivity
• Religion Not only do religious and nonreligious
people question each other’s belief systems; often
people of different religious faiths conflict.
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Employers
differ widely in their treatment of sexual
orientation.
• As for gender identity, companies are increasingly
putting in place policies to govern how their
organization treats employees who change genders
(often called transgender employees ).
• Ability
• ability is an individual’s current capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
• Overall abilities are essentially made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and physical.
• Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities—thinking,
reasoning, and problem solving
• Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
• Number aptitude; Ability to do speedy and accurate
arithmetic
• Verbal comprehension; Ability to understand what is read or
heard and the relationship of words to each other
• Perceptual speed Ability to identify visual similarities and
differences quickly and accurately
• Inductive reasoning Ability to identify a logical sequence in a
problem and then solve the problem
• Deductive reasoning Ability to use logic and assess the
implications of an argument
• Spatial visualization Ability to imagine how an object would
look if its position in space were changed
• Memory Ability to retain and recall past experiences
 Implementing Diversity Management Strategies
• Attracting, Selecting, Developing, and Retaining
Diverse Employees
• One method of enhancing workforce diversity is to
target recruiting messages to specific demographic
groups underrepresented in the workforce.
• This means placing advertisements in publications
geared toward specific demographic groups;
recruiting at colleges, universities, and other
institutions with significant numbers of
underrepresented minorities;
• Some data suggest individuals who are
demographically different from their co-workers
are more likely to feel low commitment and to turn
over: women are more likely to turn over from
predominantly male work groups and men from
predominantly female work groups; non-Whites
are more likely to turn overfrom predominantly
White work groups and Whites from predominantly
non-White work groups
Diversity in Groups
• Most contemporary workplaces require extensive
work in group settings. When people work in groups,
they need to establish a common way of looking at
and accomplishing the major tasks, and they need to
communicate with one another often. If they feel
little sense of membership and cohesion in their
groups, all these group attributes are likely to suffer.
• Regardless of the composition of the group,
differences can be leveraged to achieve superior
performance
Physical Abilities
The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and
similar characteristics
Nine Physical Abilities
1.Dynamic strength; Ability to exert muscular force repeatedly or
continuously over time
2. Trunk strength; Ability to exert muscular strength using the trunk
(particularly abdominal) muscles
3. Static strength ;Ability to exert force against external objects
4. Explosive strength ;Ability to expend a maximum of energy in one or a
series of explosive acts
5. Extent flexibility ;Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as
possible
6. Dynamic flexibility ;Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements
7. Body coordination ;Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of
different parts of the body
8. Balance ;Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off
balance
9. Stamina ;Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged
effort over time