Personality, Perception and Attribution + Attitudes and Values

Beyond Pygmalion effect: the role of managerial perception.

Personality, perception and attribution.

Understanding relation within and between the organization is esencial to know that factors such perception, personality and attribution influences the behavior of individuals and therefore the organization.
“Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information.”(1) People’s perception is affected by internal factors such as personal experiences, personality and external factors such as stimuli from environment and context in which they operate.

people are apt to perceive in-group members individually and other members as a group
“Attribution theory”. Heider suggested that explanations of behaviour fall into two categories. One is internal attribution and the other is external attribution. Internal attribution is associated with personal factors such as personality, ability and motivation. In contrast, external attribution is related to environment factors such as organisational rules, luck and natural environment. So the attribution is related to beliefs,fellings and those elements affect they way of the behavior.

As mencioned before the perception and the attribution are related to personality , so is important to understand well this concept to have a better panorama how those factors could affect the organizational behavior.

“Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations “ (2). Factors such heredity and the environment could determined the personality, but a particular aspect of personality is that the behavior of a person is similar in different situations.
So in a company is fundamental to take in mind those aspects because those are elements that determine the individual behavior, that why we heard constantly that is important to motívate the workers because is easier to generat e or obtain better results.

Others aspects that evaluate or affect indirect the personality are the values. values are beliefs about preferable conduct, so your act could be determine by what you thing is right or not. But in an organization has a general values that are determined by norms that guide you how you must act inside the organization to have a better environment and better relationship with your partner.

As mencioned before values determined or has a lot of influence in the personal behavior that ´s why is important to respect the values of the other people and understand them, because in a certain way understanding them you could interpretate their personality, attitudes and the reason why a person act in a specific way.

Please explain, using your own words, the concept of Pygmalion Effect. What are the potential implications, uses, or challenges that this effect may pose for organizations engaging into international operations that require the understanding of diverse cultural contexts? Can you use this concept to explain the relationship between national and organizational cultures?

Pygmalion effect consist to provide a basis for better understanding the behaviour of actors involved. The basis of the Pygmalion Effect is the confidence that others have about us can give us the strength to achieve difficult goals in different situations.
In an organization our behaviors are influenced by supervisors see us and by us have expectations about our environment: family, friends, colleagues and bosses at the companies. Self-confidence, even if infected by a third party can give us sufficient strength to achieve what we hope to become what they believe and we believe we can be.
This phenomenon is easy to identify in an organization’s has a great impact on workers, the main effect is like the supervisor conveys to employees the message, the tone that says they can change the message and the goals will discover the enormous differences that exist to provide the same order in two different ways.
The power of expectations cannot be overestimated. These are the fundamental principles you can apply to performance expectations and potential performance improvement at work. Can we imagine how performance will improve if your supervisors actually believe that every employee has the ability to make a positive contribution at work, either consciously or unconsciously, will positively affect employee performance.
In today’s international environment, organizations are more competitive, different cultures meet making cultural differences such as races, religions and languages so this theory also helps to accommodate to different scenarios and understanding the Pygmalion Effect can make a difference in the work place.
In conclusion, it should remain committed to improving our treatment to all employees, without exception and without prejudice. We should show fair attitudes towards all. Trust us that they perceive will generate significant results in its action. Let us show faith in the ability of people to change them and make them better.

Reference.

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception.( 1)
•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology (2)
•Takao Inamori, Farhad Analoui, "Beyond Pygmalion effect: the role of managerial perception", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 29 Iss: 4, pp.306 – 321
•Gregorio Martín-de-Castro, José Emilio Navas-López, Pedro López-Sáez, Elsa Alama-Salazar, (2006) "Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm", Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 7 Iss: 3, pp.324