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Relationship Between Personality Traits, Work Environment And Interpersonal Relationship At Work
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Interpersonal relationships at work have
impact on both organizations and employees. This impact can be either
positive or negative depending on the nature of the interpersonal
relationship. Positive interpersonal relationship can improve individual
employee attitudes such as job satisfaction, job commitment, engagement
and perceived organizational support (Ellingwood, 2001; Morrison, 2009;
Song & Olshfski, 2008; Zagenczyk, Scott, Gibney, Murrell, &
Thatcher, 2010). Also negative work attitudes can be reduced when
employees discuss bad and unpleasant work experiences (Morrison, 2009;
Odden & Sias, 1997; Song & Olshfski, 2008). On an organisational
level, valued work relationships can influence organizational outcomes
by increasing institutional participation, establishing supportive and
innovative climates, increasing organizational productivity and
indirectly reducing the intent to turnover (Berman, West, Richter, &
Maurice, 2002; Crabtree, 2004; Ellingwood, 2004).
Previous research
has examined contextual and demographic antecedents to workplace
relationships to better understand what influences the likelihood that
employees develop positive relationships at work. One of the key
characteristics that has been identified to play a role is personality
(Ilies et al., 2009).
According to Akintayo (2012), working
environment refers to the immediate task and national environment where
an organization draws its inputs, processed it and returned the outputs
inform of products or services for public consumption. These include the
supplier, customer, stakeholders, social-cultural, economic,
technological, managerial and legal environment.
Research in the
field of industrial psychology revealed that work environment, which can
be measured through employees’ perceptions about the feature of their
organisation, has significant relationship with several domains of
organisational behaviour such as job performance, organisational
commitment, motivation etc. According to Adeniji (2011) researchers in
organizational behaviour have long been interested in understanding
employees‘ perceptions of the work environment and how these perceptions
influence individuals‘ work- related attitudes and behaviours. Early
researchers suggested that the social climate or atmosphere created in a
workplace had significant consequences- employees‘ perceptions of the
work context purportedly influenced the extent to which people were
satisfied and perform up to their potential, which in turn, was
predicted to influence organizational productivity (e.g Katz & Kahn,
2004; Likert,1997, McGregor, 2000). The construct of climate has been
studied extensively and has proven useful in capturing perceptions of
the work context (Denisson, 2006; Ostroff, Kinicki & Tamkins, 2007).
Climate has been described as an experientially based description of
the work environment and, more specifically, employees‘ perceptions of
the formal and informal policies, practices and procedures in their
organization (Schneider, 2008).
It is deduced that studies on
organizational climate also refers to the work environment since
organizational climate, conceptually, is a description of the work
environment based on employees’ perceptions. In this study, the
researcher probes into the work environment as it affects interpersonal
relationship among employees. Also, personality is investigated as a
dispositional factor with implications on the level and quality of
interpersonal relationships of employees.
1.2 Background of the Study
Work
environment on the behaviour of its members has been an important issue
of discussion and analysis since long back. In industrial context, the
problem of increasing production and making the work environment more
pleasant have been approached through the introduction of durable
changes in working environment. The environment in work organizations
comprises several components of two major categories, namely, physical
and psycho-social. During early days of development of industrial
psychology only physical environment in work place was given importance
and was considered as a predominant determinant of employees’
productivity. Numerous earlier studies examined the effect of
illumination, temperature, noise, and atmospheric conditions on
productivity of the workers (Bennett, Chitlangia, & Pangnekar, 1977;
McCormic & Sanders, 1982; Moreland & Barnes, 1970; Peterson
& Gross, 1978; Vickroy, Shaw, & Fisher, 1982). However, no
consistent relationship could be noted between these components of
physical work environment and performance. After Hawthorne studies
industrial psychologists started shifting their attention to the study
of social and psychological environment and its effects on employees’
job behaviour.
The recognition of the significant role of
psycho-social environment led to the emergence of organizational
psychology, and further the concept of ‘quality of work life’. The
importance of physical work environment has now been again realized. The
modern organizations are making all possible efforts to make work
environment more comfortable, safe and healthy, which resulted in
emergence of a new branch of industrial/organizational psychology,
namely ‘occupational health psychology’. This is a more holistic method
of looking at the work environment and the health of the workers.
The
influence of organizational climate, which is mostly composed of
several organizational, social and psychological factors, has been
extensively examined in past two decades. In a number of studies
employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, job involvement, job
performance, and health have been found to be markedly influenced by
psycho-social environment of work organization (Anantharaman &
Subha, 1980; Dugdill, 2000; Mishra, 1986; Muchinsky, 1977; Tumuly,
Jernigan & Kohut, 1994).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Studies have shown that in as much as there are more than one person who work in an Organisation, interpersonal relationship is about the most important factor in the productivity and success of such Organisation. The objective of this study therefore is to examine the influence of Personality factors and work environment on interpersonal relationship at work.A survey research design was adopted using a total sample of one hundred and eighty-one employees, across different industries in Lagos. T ... Continue reading---
