PART TWO – INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIORS AND PROCESSES IN
ORGANIZATIONS
Chapter Three – Individual Characteristics Overview
Chapter 1 showed how managers strive to enhance performance behaviors, enhance commitment and
engagement, promote citizenship behaviors, and minimize dysfunctional behaviors by their employees.
Chapter 2 identified how various environmental factors—diversity, globalization, technology, ethics, and
new employment relationships—all impact organizational behavior.
The text now turns to part two with a fundamental question underlying organizational behavior: Why do
individuals do what they do? Chapter 3 identifies and discusses critical individual characteristics that
affect people’s behaviors in organizations. The discussion of other important individual characteristics is
continued in Chapter 4. Core theories and concepts that drive employee motivation are introduced and
discussed in Chapter 5. Finally, in Chapter 6 we focus on how managers can implement motivation
theories and concepts.
In this chapter we explore some of the key characteristics that differentiate people from one another in
organizations. We first introduce the essential nature of individual differences and how people “fit” as
individuals in organizations. We then look at personality frameworks that shed considerable light on
different personality profiles. Next, we examine other specific personality traits and discuss different
types of intelligence. We close this chapter with an examination of different styles for processing
information and learning. Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Explain the nature of individual differences, the concept of fit, and the role of realistic job previews.
2. Define personality and describe general personality frameworks and attributes that affect behavior
in organizations.
3. Identify and discuss other important personality traits that affect behavior in organizations.
4. Discuss different kinds of intelligence that affect behavior in organizations.
5. Describe different learning styles that influence how people process information and that affect
behavior in organizations. Real World Challenge: Individual Differences That Make a Difference at
Southwest Airlines
Summary: Fun and friendly customer service is essential to the success of Southwest Airlines’ business
strategy. Southwest believes it can train new hires on whatever they need to do, but it cannot change
employees’ inherent nature. To support its goals of hiring fun, creative, innovative employees, Southwest
Airlines looks for leadership and a sense of humor in the people it hires. The company looks for empathetic people with other-oriented, outgoing personalities who work hard and have fun at the same
time.
Real World Challenge: Southwest asks for your advice about how to better hire empathetic employees
with creativity and fun-loving characteristics who fit with the company’s unique culture. After reading
this chapter, you should have some good ideas.
Real World Response: Job candidates do more than interview for a job; they audition—and the audition
begins the moment they request an application. Managers jot down anything memorable about the initial
conversation, both good and bad. Employees observe whether recruits are consistently friendly to the
crew and to other passengers or if they complain. Southwest’s flight attendant assessment methods not
only ensure that it hires people whose personalities fit the culture, but also help it execute its customer
service strategy. Chapter Outline
I. People in Organizations
A. Individual Differences
Individual differences are personal attributes that vary from one person to another. Individual
differences may be physical, psychological, and emotional.
Basic categories of individual differences include personality, intelligence, learning styles,
attitudes, values and emotions, perception, and stress.
Managers should also be aware of psychological contracts that exist between the organization
and its employees. In an ideal situation, then, understanding differences across people

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