Studies report that heredity has a strong influence on an individual’s personality. What are the implications of this influence in organizational settings?

There are a number of issues that student might -- and should -- raise in response to this question. Effectively, the question is asking for the actions that can be logically deduced by knowing that an employees’ personality is greatly determined by their born tendencies.

First, the strong effect of heredity suggests that applicant selection is an important way to improve job performance and employee well-being (by ensuring their work matches their personality). Although we might try to change an employees style of behavior, their inherent style is strongly determined already. This is why many companies refer to “hire for attitude, train for skill”

A second implication is that training for some types of behavior (fun-oriented, detailed, talkative, etc.) might be less successful than employer assume. It would be better to transfer people into jobs that more closely match their personality.

This understanding also lead to more objective understanding of poor performing employees, knowing that some inherent personality traits are just not possible to be modified. Instead, knowing that every personality traits are meant for some jobs, attempt can be made toward realigning the match for more appropriate job functions instead, rather than pushing for impossible behavioral change.

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