Transcript Individual differences and HRM

MGTO 231
Human Resources
Management
Individual differences and diversity
in organizations
Dr. Kin Fai Ellick WONG
Question for you
• Why do we call human resources
“human resources”?
– Why do we consider the staff in
organizations as “resources” ?
– I hope you will get the insight at the end
of this class
Outline
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Individual differences
Individual differences and HRM
Diversity in organizations
Managing diversity
Outline
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Individual differences
Individual differences and HRM
Diversity in organizations
Managing diversity
What constitute individual differences?
• Individuals are different from each other in
some domains to a certain extent
– Physical
• Age; Height; Skin color; Sex
– Psychological
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Intelligence
Personality
Attitude
Value
How to capture individual differences?
• Observation
– Subjective and biased
• Measures and/or tests
– Relatively more objective
– Reliability
• The extent to which a score is stable
• Is it precise?
– Validity
• The extent to which the test is measuring what it is
supposed to measure
• Does the test catch the correct meaning?
Some typical psychological tests
• Achievement test
– Test related to the past
– Test the amount of learning
– Test the knowledge in a specific domain
• Dictation; Examination; 基準試
• Aptitude test
– Test related to future
– Test the potential of learning
• 學能測驗
• Intelligence test
– Test related to whole life
– Test the general potential to solve
problems, adapt to change; think
abstractly; and profit from experience
• Wechsler IQ test
• Major components of IQ test
– Common sense
– Memory span
– Visual-spatial ability
– Verbal reasoning, etc.
• Personality test
– Test that can differentiate people with
different overt and covert behaviors
– Commonly used personality test
• NEO-PI (Big five personality)
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Openness to Experience
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
• Attitude test
• Interview
Outline
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Individual differences
Individual differences and HRM
Diversity in organizations
Managing diversity
Individual differences and HRM
• What will HRM be if there are no
differences across individuals?
• Do we need discussing about recruitment
and selection?
• Do we have the problem of finding the best
person for a particular position?
• Do we need to have different
compensations for different people?
• Do we need training anymore?
More on individual differences
• Relationship between cognitive ability
and job performance
• Relationship between personality and
job performance
• I’ll discuss the related issues more in
Recruitment and Selection
Outline
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Individual differences
Individual differences and HRM
Diversity in organizations
Managing diversity
Gender differences
• Biological constraints on women
– Pregnant and give birth
– Dual roles (mother and employee)
– Give benefits (e.g., day-care for children)
to keep women from leaving
Races
• Relatively less heterogeneous in Hong
Kong than in the US
• Major race components in Hong Kong firms
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Local Hong Kong residents
Mainland Chinese
Taiwan Chinese
Caucasians
Indian or Pakistanis
Southeast Asians
Black
Ages
• Stereotype about older workers
– Less motivated to work hard
– “Dead wood”
– Resistant to change and cannot learn new
methods
– Not supported by research
• Generation conflict
– The old may feel that their position and status
are threatened by the young
• Older workers are often the primary
target for layoffs
– Earn more money
– More susceptible to physical problems
Salary levels
• Same position but with different
salaries
– A particular situation in Hong Kong
– 70% of old salary for new civil servants
(and related jobs, e.g., social workers)
after 2000 April
– E.g., E.O.: from about $20,000 to
about $14,000
Outline
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Individual differences
Individual differences and HRM
Diversity in organizations
Managing diversity
The challenges
• Values of employee diversity
– Difference as deficiency
– The less homogenous a group, the less
common ground necessary to a viable
organization
• Stereotype, prejudice, and
discrimination
Major problems
• Language barrier
– Good English writing: direct and overt
– Good Chinese writing: Implicit and covert
• Religion
• Values
– Aggressive and assertive are highly valued in
the West
– Following norm is highly valued in Chinese
– Being critical to authority
• West: Good;
Chinese: Don’t
• How can individual differences be
beneficial to organizations?
– Darwin’s idea of evolution
– Burden or opportunity?
– How can a highly homogenous
organization be non-adaptive?
Evolutionary Theory
• Evolution is a scientific fact
– The science community is no longer interested
in proving whether evolution is true or not
– The evidence from different areas supports
evolution
• Too much evidence so far
• Reading any evolutionary biology textbooks will lead
you understanding how strong the evidence is
– Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory
• A theory explaining evolution
• One of the strongest theories in the science
community
– Again, lots of evidence strongly supports Darwin’s idea
Evolutionary Theory
• Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory
– Three basic assumptions
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Variation
Natural Selection
Inheriting (遺傳)
Mutation (基因突變) is not a part of Darwin’s theory
but plays a very important role in evolution…
– Survival of a species depends on
• The variety of variation (gene pool variety)
• The environmental changes
Evolutionary Theory
• The probability of survival increases as the
variety of a species’ gene pool increases
– E.g., a species with multiple colors vs. a species
with a single color.
• Why?
– The future and the environment are not always
predictable
– It is not certain which characteristics will be
selected or eliminated by the environment
(natural selection)
Question for you
• Why do we call human resources
“human resources”?
– Why do we consider the staff in
organizations as “resources” ?
– I hope you will get the insight at the end
of this class
Conclusion
• No individual differences, No HRM !!!!!
• Because of individual differences,
TALENTS in the market are LIMITED !!!!
• Thus, we need to have a systematic and
effective way to MANAGE this resource
– Selecting, strengthening, keeping (good
employees), and removing (bad employees) etc.