MGMT1135 Organisational Behaviour Semester 2, 2015

MGMT1135 Organisational Behaviour Semester 2, 2015 Assignment 2 Due: 4pm, 5 October Topic: Personality and Employee Job Performance This is an individual assignment. The purpose of the assignment is to get you thinking about organisational behaviour and its application in organisations. The assignment will also introduce you to reading research articles, and get you started as a scholarly writer about organisational behaviour. Suggestions on how you could approach this topic Clearly you will need to have a thorough knowledge of personality as a concept in organisational behaviour, so first read up about personality in Chapter 2 of the text, listen to the lectures again on personality in organisations (Week 2), and think about aspects of it that interest you. In your essay you will need to explain what personality is, present one or more definitions and cite the sources you have used. Once you know quite a bit about the concept of personality, you will be able to describe it giving examples, describe the processes through which it forms, explain what effects it has and how it has those effects, that is, the mechanism(s) through which these effects come about. Those mechanisms will be drawn from theory, and you will cite references for those explanations. You will also need to consider evidence regarding the extent to which there is a relationship between personality and employee job performance. For example, is there evidence that individuals with certain personality profiles perform better at work? How well does personality predict the likelihood that an employee will perform well? Are there other factors that influence or affect the relationship between personality and employee job performance? Based on this previous information and discussion you will also consider what the implications are for the use of personality testing in organisations. Is it beneficial or a waste of time? What role, if any, should personality testing play in an organisation’s recruitment process? You will need to conduct a review of scholarly literature related to your topic. To provide an overview of research on the topic you may include both classic articles, to give a historical perspective on the development of ideas in the area, and recent articles to show the cutting edge of development in the field. Classic articles are older articles that establish major concepts or findings and have been influential on later work. In other words, you are not restricted to only the most recent articles in your reviews, but you should include some recent articles to make sure each aspect that you cover is up-to-date. However, you must read every article you cite, so do not aim for a very long reference list. To ensure appropriate breadth, you will need to incorporate at least five peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to the topic if you are to pass this assignment at a minimum level.