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.

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MGMT1135

Organisational Behaviour

Semester 2, 2015

To get you started, here are a few articles to give you some ideas. You may use and cite these
articles where appropriate in your assignment, and any of them that you use will be counted
toward your minimum of five peer-reviewed articles.

Barrick, M.R. & Mount, M.K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job
performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26.
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (2005). Yes, personality matters: Moving on to more
important matters. Human Performance, 18(4), 359-372.
Hough, L.M. & Oswald, F.L. (2008). Personality testing and industrial-organizational
psychology: Reflections, progress, and prospects. Industrial and Organizational
Psychology, 1(3), 272-290.
McCrae, R.R. & John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its
applications. Journal of Personality, 60(2), 175-215.
Penney, L.M., David E., & Witt L.A. (2011). A review of personality and performance:
Identifying boundaries, contingencies, and future research directions. Human
Resource Management Review, 21(4), 297-310.
Some of these articles contain some advanced statistical techniques. Don’t worry, you are not
expected to understand those parts of the article. Read the article for its introductory sections
and its discussion, and try to understand what they did and what they found.

Discuss the topic with your tutor
From the second tutorial onwards there will be opportunities during tutorials for discussion of
the assignment.

Late assignments submitted after the due time will be penalised with a deduction of marks as
follows.
Penalty for late submission of assignment
Late assignments will receive a deduction of 10% for every day late, or part thereof. For
example, an assignment due Monday that is submitted on the following Wednesday, (two
days late), and receives an initial mark of 65% would be marked down to 45%. No extension
of the due date will be granted, except where special consideration is granted due to
exceptional personal circumstances (e.g. illness, with accompanying medical certificate). The
unit outline tells you how to apply for special consideration.

2

MGMT1135

Organisational Behaviour

Semester 2, 2015

Formatting & Referencing Style
All assignments must be in Times or Times Roman 12 point font, with double line spacing.
The double-line spacing is used to make room for markers to insert comments around your
text.
Make sure each page has a page number.
Do not include appendices.
All citations and the reference list must be formatted according to either Harvard style or
APA style. You must be consistent, do not mix styles.
Harvard and APA Style WARNING: You must follow the style as specified in the UWA
library
guides for the particular citation and reference style. These can be found at the following
library web sites.
http://www.is.uwa.edu.au/information-resources/guides
NB: In other places you might find versions of Harvard style that have slight variations. For
example, EndNote may produce Harvard references with the authors in all uppercase, and
periods after the author initials – it depends on the settings that have been saved in EndNote.
This is not the style specified in the library guide and will not be acceptable.
Word Limit: 2000 words
The word limit is absolute; there is no additional percentage margin.
The WORD COUNT and LIMIT apply to the body of the assignment up to the beginning of
the reference list, (the reference list is not counted). All text in the body of the assignment,
including headings, sub-headings, quotations, and reference citations, will be included in the
word limit.
Any short quotes that must be read in order to understand your discussion about them must be
included in the main body of the assignment. All analysis, argument and discussion must be
in the main body of the assignment.

Words beyond the word limit will not be marked. Only words up to the word limit will be
considered part of the assignment and will contribute to the mark.