ROLE OF PERSONALITY AND CULTURE ON WORK VALUES AND MENTAL HEALTH OF EMPLOYEES

Abstract

The era ofglobalization has shifted the industrial boundaries from national region to the global region. This expansion of boundaries has caused a rapid change in environment due to the entry and mixing of employees belonging to different regions, back grounds and cultures. This variation and diversity in employees has originated a dynamic environment and created a need to study the importance of culture, individual personality, individual mental health and the work values ofemployees in motivating and maximizing the value of its intellectual assets thus enhancing the effectiveness of the organization. Psychologists have noted that Culture influences personality and people differ across cultural groups. For example, Americans and Indans have slightly different concepts of 'self. American culture being individualistic (Hofstede, 2001), promotes a view of the self as an independent entity. They tend to describe themselves in terms of personal attributes, values, and achievements and they learn to be self-reliant, to compete with others, and to value their uniqueness. Indian culture which is collective culture promotes submissive view ofselfand describes selfas an integral part of the society they live in. Among the factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends, and social groups, and other influences that we experience. The environment to which we are exposed plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities. This study explores the differences in work values and mental health of the two types of personalities, differences in cultures on work values, differences of mental health of two cultures (individualistic and collective), differences in mental health and work values between males and females. For the present study the data was collected with the help of a structured questionnaire and personal interviews from a total of 217 employees working as managers in corporate India and Corporate America between the age of 32 to 50 years. The statistical techniques employed for the analysis of data are the t-test and the Pearson's correlation between the variables. Findings of the study reveal that there is significant difference in Mental Health and Work Values between the Types of Personalities in American/individualistic Cultures as well as Indian/Collective Cultures. Work Values and Mental Health of individualistic Cultures are found to be different than those of Collective culture. It is also found that the Work Values of females are different than the males. The results also revealed that the there is a correlation between Mental Health and Work Values. Lastly it also revealed that the Work Values of Type A Personality are different than the Type B Personality. These findings are very useful in determining the people-job-organization fit to avoid putting square pegs in the round holes. It will help Human Resource Managers in understanding the Mental/Psychological Health and Work Values of employees and providing them with the suitable job opportunity and/or providing an opportunity for their training.