Occupational differences in healthcare : a categorization in terms of personality dispositions

Abstract

This personality study on organizational psychology examines different attitudes demonstrated by different occupational work groups towards situational characteristics and namely those within the context of Performance Management (PM), a management tool charting agreed objectives in a work plan, monitoring progress of, and providing feedback to each individual employee in the achievement of these objectives, which may be linked to a reward. Contrary to the traditional school which advocates that situational characteristics cause predictable behaviour across individuals, the main focus is therefore the dispositional approach, although this perspective does not negate situational effects. The attitudes towards the eventual roll out of a Performance Management Plan (PMP) in St. Luke's Hospital are investigated. The organization under investigation was seen to provide suitable ground for conducting the study because of the heterogeneity of work groups involving professional and other ancillary workers. The categorization of attitudes employed a number of personality disposition indices, including Locus of control (LOC), Goal orientation (GO) and Self efficacy (SE). The bipolar nature of these constructs enabled most of the answers to the items used in the questionnaire to be coded along a scale. Quantitatively, the occupation variable emerged as one of the most important variable out of all the biographical variables under study, when correlated with the personality variables. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate a qualified clustering of the professions in terms of personality traits, compared with the ancillary group. The LOC variable emerged as the most consistent of all the constructs under study both cross-sectionally amongst the various occupations under study and also vertically within the same occupation. This paper argues that this personality variable may relate to previous literature exploring the strategies and struggles over boundaries between a profession and other groups where power is contested.