Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts & Exam Prep

Posted on Apr 6, 2025 in Energy Resources, Fuels, and Explosives Engineering

Organizational Behavior Exam 1 Study Guide

Meyer’s Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Understand the Meyers-Briggs dimensions and be able to describe them in terms of the types’ preferences or traits.

  • Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator
  • Identifies 8 personality preferences: 4 pairs of opposites
  • The 4 preferences are your “type” and are based on 4 different types of questions

Energy Source

  • (E) or (I): Extraversion vs. Introversion
  • Extraversion: Preference for drawing energy from the outside world of people, activities, and things.
  • Introversion: Preference for drawing energy from one’s internal world of ideas, emotions, and impressions.

Information Intake

  • (S) or (N): Sensing vs. Intuition
  • Sensing: Preference for taking in information through the five senses and noticing what is actual.
  • Intuition: Preference for taking in information through the “6th sense” and noting what might be (theory-driven, want the “big picture”).

Decision Making

  • (T) or (F): Thinking vs. Feeling
  • Thinking: Preference for organizing and structuring information to decide in a logical, objective way (rational, cold-hard facts).
  • Feeling: Preference for relying on personal values and emotions to make decisions (how do I feel about this? How will people feel/react?).

Preferred Lifestyle

  • (J) or (P): Judging vs. Perceiving
  • Judging: Preference for living a planned, controlled, and organized life (like structure, lists).
  • Perceiving: Preference for living a spontaneous and flexible life (like loose system, flexibility).

The Big Five Personality Traits (CANOE)

Know the Big Five Personality Dimensions (C.A.N.O.E.) and be able to describe the characteristics and tendencies of each of the five.

  • Conscientiousness:
    • Careful, dependable, organized, hardworking, persevering, ambiguous, self-disciplined.
  • Agreeableness:
    • Courteous, caring, empathetic, warm, kind, cooperative.
  • Neuroticism (Emotional Stability):
    • Low Emotional Stability (ES) = High Neuroticism
    • High Emotional Stability = calm, secure, steady, relaxed, poised.
  • Openness to Experience:
    • Imaginative, creative, curious, aesthetically sensitive.
  • Extraversion:
    • Talkative, sociable, passionate, assertive, bold.

Big Five vs. MBTI

  • Big Five is more reliable.
  • MBTI assumes bi-modal distributions, which isn’t always true.
  • Big 5 is a better predictor.

Self Concept/Evaluation

Understand the concepts that contribute to Core Self-Evaluations – self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control (internal/external):

  • Self-esteem:
    • The extent to which people like, respect, and are satisfied with themselves – represents a global self-evaluation.
    • Factors that we accept and value in ourselves and can be either negative or positive.
  • Self-Efficacy:
    • One’s belief that he can succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. High = “Can Do” Attitude.
  • Locus of Control (external vs. internal):
    • A person’s general belief about the amount of control he or she has over personal life events.
    • External: Those with an external locus of control believe their personal characteristics (i.e., motivation and abilities) mainly influence life’s outcomes.
    • Internal: Those with an internal locus of control have a more positive self-evaluation. They also tend to perform better in most employment information.

Motivation Theories

Review the motivation theories: Maslow’s hierarchy, the motivator-hygiene theory, expectancy, & locus of control:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (from top to bottom)

  1. Self-Actualization: Self-fulfillment
  2. Esteem: Status, Job title
  3. Belonging: Friendship, friends
  4. Safety, Security: stability, retirement plan
  5. Physiological: Shelter, Wages

Equity Theory

A theory of motivation that focuses on people’s perceptions of the fairness of their work outcomes relative to their work inputs.

Example of outcomes and inputs of equity theory:

  • Inputs: Time, Effort, Education/Training, Experience, Skills, Creativity, Seniority, Loyalty
  • Outcomes: Pay/Bonuses, Fringe benefits, challenging assignments, Job Security, Promotions, Status, Personal Growth, Recognition

People make social comparisons with their inputs/outputs against other workers’ inputs/outputs; any imbalance is seen as unfair.

Expectancy Theory

Expectation that:

Effort will lead to performance.