Overview
Consider the basic principles of personality discussed in Chapter 5. A key takeaway is
that there are core underlying personality traits (i.e., the Big 5), and the interaction of
those traits create our unique dispositions and temperaments which manifest as
emotion, mood, and behavior. Another takeaway is that while under certain conditions
these traits can change; however, for the most part they remain relatively stable
throughout our life, meaning that regardless of our chronological age, we tend to act
and react in a similar way across a wide range of situations. This is what underlies our
‘personality profile’, and is important to understand because our past behavior is often a
good indicator of our future behavior.
As such, personality assessment has become a common practice in organizational
settings, as understanding an individual’s behavioral and perceptual tendencies greatly
enhances personnel management. Specifically, as noted by www.siop.org “Some
commonly measured personality traits in work settings are extraversion, conscientiousness,
openness to new experiences, optimism, agreeableness, service orientation, stress tolerance,
emotional stability, and initiative or proactivity. Personality tests typically measure traits related
to behavior at work, interpersonal interactions, and satisfaction with different aspects of
work. Personality tests are often used to assess whether individuals have the potential to be
successful in jobs where performance requires a great deal of interpersonal interaction or work
in team settings.”
Therefore one challenge for managers is how to determine what someone’s traits are,
and how they factor into activities such as job assignment, performance assessment,
training and development, and recognition and reward. Many personality-based
assessments have become popularized in industry (e.g., Myers Briggs, Strong Interest
Inventory, and Hogan Personality Assessment) and offer managers a wide variety of
options for understanding and leveraging employee work behavior.
One drawback of many of the personality assessments currently available is that most
are very complex to develop and require some level of psychometric training to
administer and interpret, and the results (taken by themselves) may not lend
themselves to practical application. As such, a recent personality measure known as the
“Core Self Evaluation” (CSE) was developed to give a more concise and ‘user friendly’
tool. It was also developed in large part to overcome the limitations of predictive ability
among unique traits.
The best description of CSE is from the researchers who developed it
From Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E. and Thoresen, C. J. (2003), The core-self
evaluations scale: Development of a measure. Personnel Psychology, 56: 303–
331.
“A line of research has developed which suggests that a broad personality trait,
termed core self-evaluations, is a significant predictor of job satisfaction and job
performance. Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) introduced the concept of core selfevaluations
in an effort to provide a trait that would be a useful predictor job
satisfaction, as well as perhaps other applied criteria. According to Judge et al. (1997),
core self-evaluations is a broad, latent, higher-order trait indicated by four wellestablished
traits in the personality literature: (1) self-esteem, the overall value that
one places on oneself as a person (Harter, 1990); (2) generalized self-efficacy, an
evaluation of how well one can perform across a variety of situations (Locke, McClear,
& Knight, 1996); (3) neuroticism, the tendency to have a negativistic
cognitive/explanatory style and to focus on negative aspects of the self (Watson,
2000); and (4) locus of control, beliefs about the causes of events in one’s life-locus is
internal when individuals see events as being contingent on their own behavior
(Rotter, 1966). As one can gather from the commonality among these traits, core selfevaluations
is a basic, fundamental appraisal of one’s worthiness, effectiveness, and
capability as a person.”
The applied value of CSE is that it is 12 question survey that results in a composite
score of the four traits described above. The closer to 60 the individual score, the more
the individual feels generally positive about his or her self and capabilities. As a
manager, it is not enough to simply try to motivate one individual when performance
begins to drop. It is also not enough to simply institute a policy and expect the entire
group to embrace it. Instead, at the group level, having a realistic and valid way to
assess something like CSE will better enable you to develop more effective incentive
and reward initiatives. Going back to my earlier example, had my former boss
understood that we were already motivated, and that the offerings made were actually
demotivating (i.e., we valued appreciation more than free bottles of wine) he might have
changed his outlook and approach.
In other words, before initiating a reward and recognition program, management needs
to have a more clear understanding of the temperaments and dispositions of the
individuals that will be impacted. That way a better understanding of the expectations
and motivations of the individuals can be better determined. For example, from working
with MBA classes over the years, I have come to expect a certain degree of uncertainty
in individual’s perceptions of their own capability which is due to both coming back to
school after being away for a period of time, and from having to work on things that are
most likely new or out of the routine. I also know that for some, earning an advanced
degree is one way to satisfy a need that in integral to their overall disposition. On the
other hand, there are also those who are externally motivated to work on an advanced
degree, and who may avoid it given the choice.
For these and other reasons, I have learned over the years that each class
(undergraduate, graduate, and even continuing education training classes) have their
own unique ‘personality’, and I have set my performance expectations and adjusted my
incentive and reward options based on what I feel are the key traits of those in the
class. As such, I expect most in an MBA class such as this to be at or above the mean
CSE range. The histogram (below) represents the results derived from the survey you
all completed, and as you will see it generally supports my assertion- i.e., most in this
class would be expected to have an above average CSE score.
Overall, while a variety of assessments are available, the CSE assessment is very
practical and useful because it is free to use, takes only a couple of minutes to
complete, and if you understand the psychometric properties of the assessment it
provides a great deal of information to help me develop and run a class.
Assignment Instructions
Using the O*NET job analysis data from Activity 1, please complete the following:
1. Describe what you feel would be the typical ‘profile’ of an individual who would
not only be interested in seeking this job, but also who would feel a high level of
job satisfaction. Specifically, considering the Interests, Work Styles, and Work
Values please identify specific personality traits that you feel would enable the
individual to be intrinsically motivated and highly successful in the job.
2. Consider the job itself (Tasks, Tools, Technology etc.) and describe how Core
Self Evaluation (CSE) might help you to be more effective in setting performance
goals- i.e, how would CSE influence your performance expectations of an
employee holding this job?
3. Considering the various motivation theories and approaches described in
Chapter 8, please describe what you feel would be an effective incentive and
reward program for this job. Make sure to identify specific motivation factors that
are relevant to the job, and describe how they would directly satisfy the needs of
the individual performing the job.
There is no format or word count requirements for this assignment. I
will not grade your work on whether I think you are right or wrong- My
only requirement is for you to demonstrate a high level of concept
understanding and synthesis
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