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.
