Individual Organization Behavior Essay, Research Paper

Individual Organization Behavior

US. Army company A 204th Engineer Combat Battalion Heavy Chapter 3:

Foundations of Individual Behavior

Table of contents: ? Introduction.

a. Description, History and Organizational structure.

? Key biographical characteristics.

a. Age.

b. Gender.

c. Marital Status.

d. Number of dependents.

e. Tenure.

? Factors that determine an individual’s personality.

a. Personality determinants

b. Personality Traits.

c. Personality Attributes influencing Organizational behavior.

d. Personalities and national cultures.

e. Matching personalities and jobs. (Holland’s Typology).

? Summarize how learning theories provide into changing behavior.

a. Theories of learning.

b. Shaping Behavior : A managerial tool.

? Reinforcement.

a. Rewards

? Applications for Specific Organizations.

a. S U T A (Substitute Unit Training Assistance).

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Now for the Essay

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Chapter: 3 Individual Organizational Behavior

The NY Army National Guard. I. This organization’s history goes back around 300

years, to the time of the ?Minutemen?. The brave men and women that fought to

gain our independence here in the state of NY. The NY Army National guard is

under the control of the Governor of NY. But in Wartime this organization

becomes Federalize and under the Command of our Commander in Chief. The

President of the United States. I am the Commander for A-Company Detachment 2 of

the 204th Engineer Bn, located in Riverhead, NY here in Long Island. *[Let's

take a closer look at the Org. Chart]* My Unit has 72 Men and Women who are

civilians during the month but dedicate one weekend a month and two weeks in the

year to serve our State and Country. We have two types of missions for which we

train all year long. – The State Mission : These are emergency calls in time of

disasters, due to nature or mischief. (ex: Floods snowstorms, Riots, Plane

crashes, Drug enforcement, Border patrols, etc.) – The Federal Mission : These

takes effect in time when the President or Congress declares War, Police Ac-tion

or Rescue and or Protection to a foreign country. We also train by going

overseas and helping countries. Now lets talk about the individual Behaviors of

my organization shall we? [Flip to Outline].*

II.Key Biographical Characteristics a.Age in my unit is very

diversified. I have new soldiers entering the unit at age 18, and current

members range from their 20’s to their 40’s. The Standard to Join the US. Army

is 18-28 yrs. – Rank and degree of responsibility are factors of productivity .

- Degree of Absenteeism is found in both. – Turnover is mainly found in younger

soldiers, they move from state to state often. – Job satisfaction also go hand

in hand with rank and responsibility. The Older and higher the rank the more.

b.Of course we don’t discriminate – I found that females are often more

absent. – Also that a degree of J/S shifted more towards the males. – And

females tend to turnover easier than males. c.Our troops often have to face

the increasing risk of being deployed overseas, and that of course always shows

in the soldier’s work behavior. This is mostly from worried Wives and Husbands

thinking that their spouses won’t come back. *(That includes mine of course).* -

Single soldiers tend to miss UTA’s more than married ones. – J/S is found more

with higher rank soldiers instead of looking at marital status.

d.We provide school, day-care and counseling programs to dependents. This

helps the soldiers cope with the stressful job of parenting.

This helps the organization deal with absenteeism, J/S and turnover. e.

Tenure to the US Army means Experience and Skills, that can be shared to

younger soldiers. – Mission Readiness is increased when subordinates respect and

obey their older peers. III.Personality A.Determinants Heredity: For our

mission usually don’t determine a soldier for his looks or muscle definition.

That is up to the soldier to ex-ploit when it comes to personal development.

*APFT* Environment: Some of our soldiers when they grow up in places like NYC

behave and perform different from those soldiers that spend their upbringing in

smaller towns. We found this to be a factor in Mission readiness, Absenteeism,

turnover and J/S. Situation : We are all bound to a code of honor, duty and

conduct. So we act differently according to the situation. The differ-ence is

found more with younger soldiers, they sometimes don’t know how to act and need

to be directed or supervised. B.The Meyers-Briggs Personality Type

Indicators. [MBTI] Extroverted-Introverted (E-I) Sensing-Intuitive

(S-N) Thinking-Feeling (T-F) Perceiving-Judging

(P-J)

Recruiters and administrators use this method to classify soldiers into ? major

personality types indicators We call it the ASVAP: ========> Combining any of

these gives us some good personality types:

here are examples of job classifications by Pers/Type: ISTJ= Administrative,

Dentist, Police, Accountants, Military. ISFJ= Nurses, Teachers, Librarians,

Clerical Supervisors. INFJ= Clergy, Physicians, Media Specialist, Education

Consultants. ISTP= Farmers, Mechanics, Electronic repair, Engineers, Dental

Hygienist.

* Look at the handout and See what personality trait you might belong to * C.

Personality Attributes Influencing OB. A soldier’s Career path is determined on

different factors, which are all tied up to his or her performance. APFT=

>MILITARY/CIVILIAN EDU =>MARKSMANSHIP>JOB RATING. Locus Of Control Internal =

The one I personally believe in. It means that everyone is a master of their own

destiny fate and life. External = People think that their careers and life

depends on others’ decisions. Or that luck and chance have much to do in it.

[Found in most of my soldiers]* Machiavellism = A way to characterize a persons

ability to manipulate, gain or lack power. – High Machs = (Most of my First Line

Supervisors) – Low Machs = People that don’t like to persuade, believe in SOP

Reg’s and rules. (My higher chain of Command including myself) Self Esteem =

This is found at my job with people that volunteer often, and with people that

hide in formations and I don’t recall their names. Some females Self Monitoring =

Some soldiers Don’t know how to react to certain enviroments such as combat

simulation, or emergency deployment. Others like me look forward to this type of

disruption. Other might be excellent soldiers but their civilian life might be

difficult to handle. Risk Taking = This is a trait that the armed forces take

very seriously. I am talking about the life risking the life of many men and

women. All at mgmt level use a formula: Every mission is given a number, if the

sum equals 18-21 the degree of risk man-agement calls for Low caution 22-25 is a

High caution #>25 is a Dangerous Mission. * We can say that Risk taking is the

big factor in O/B in my organization* D.Personalities and National

Cultures Type A = These personalities are found in logistics, administration and

personnel departments. Characterized by being impatient, caring about time

management. Mostly found in north Americans. Type B = This is the most popular

personality in my unit. They are not concern with time management, they have to

be super-vised closely. Found in other than our culture. E.Personalities

and Job-Fit Theory Holland’s Typology. This uses six personality characteristics

and matches them with congruent occupations. Realistic =

>shy/persistent/practical [Mech., Assy. Line, Farmers] Investigative =

>Analitycal/original/curious [Biologist, Economist, Reporters] Social =

>sociable/friendly/cooperative [Social worker, Teacher, Counselor] Conventional =

>Conforming/efficient/practical [Acct., Corp. Mgr., Bank teller] Enterprising =>

Self confident/ambitious/dominant [Lawyer, Real Estate] Artistic =>Imaginative/

disorderly/ idealistic [Painter, Writer, Musician]

IVLearning a.Theories

We use the Classical Conditioning theory ,Operand Theory and Social theory of

learning. The Classical theory tells us that people respond to a certain

stimulus or in a certain manner depend-ing.

[Ex: When a flare is in the sky, the soldier will automatically hit the ground,

close eyes and will not move.] This is learned by associating flash with the

enemy fire. – The Operand Theory is used when individuals go beyond the standard

in a mission completion. They are recognized in front of their peers. – The

social theory is found in a program called OJT. With this program a new soldier

is teamed with a specialist and at the end will receive a certificate of ON the

Job Training. b.Shaping Behavior – Positive Reinforcement is used by us

when we go to the soldier and thank him for a job well done. – Negative

Reinforcement is used when pay is taking out of their paycheck, or a promotion

suspen-sion. – Punishment is used by drill Sgt.’s when they make the trainees do

push-ups or sit-ups or run. This is done only as a way of strengthening the

soldier and reinforce that it will not happen again. – Extinction When a

standards is not met as a unit, the Higher HQ’s will not send us overseas for

training which is where everyone wants to go. V.Reinforcement -

Continuous Reinforcement is found when a soldier is tasked with a mission and

performs meeting the stan-dards. This is recorded in his annual performance

review. – Intermittent Reinforcement is used only when a soldier is having

problems meeting our standard, the time they meet the standard we congratulate

and reinforce that that is the way it will continue.

Reward Schedules – The Army once per month pays all soldiers, That is a Fixed-

Interval Schedule reward. – When I tell the soldiers that they are having two

inspections per year, they don’t know which months. This is Variable-Interval

Schedule. – When a soldier hits 39 out of 40 in a rifle competition they get an

expert badge, 25-38 they get a sharpshooter badge and below 25 they get a

marksman badge. That is a Fixed Ratio Schedule. – We don’t reward our soldiers

with the Variable-Ratio Schedule for reasons of safety and risk management.

VI.Applications For Specific Organizations We use an application called the

SUTA. This helps us reduce the amount of absenteeism by the soldier. The soldier

calls and gives a good reason for being absent, we task the supervisor to make a

training outline of what that sol-dier will do when they have to make it up. The

soldier has 30 days to perform that task and it has to be signed by an officer.

This has reduced the number of soldiers tak-ing off for no reason.