1.

Enhanced Agreeableness and Self-Image Dr. Rishipal ? & Nidhi Jain Abstract -Fast and frequent change in technology has put the present day employee under pressure. This pressure has impact on employee's personality dimensions and consequently on employee's performance. So, one of the most critical issue of modern era is to study the impact of changing psychological dimensions on employee's performance. This research was aimed to study effects of improved psychological traits like self image and agreeableness on employee performance. Statistical universe for this study was the employees having experience of more than three year from governmental and non-governmental organizations. Employee Performance, Agreeableness and Self-image among managers were assessed by using the Employee Performance Inventory developed by researchers, Agreeableness Measuring Scale (AMS) and The State Self-Esteem scale (SSES) (Heatherton & Policy, 1991) respectively. A cross-sectional and longitudinal study was conducted by using the before and after with control group research design to compare the performance of treatment group consisting of the low performer employees having lower tendency of agreeableness and self-image and control group consisting of the high performer employees having higher tendency of agreeableness and self-image. Control and treatment group were formed by adopting the sampling technique of randomization on availability basis. Before treatment both the control and treatment group were tested. The mean scores for employee performance (EP), agreeableness (Ag.) and self-image (SI) for control group were 24.27, 213.76 and 79.69 respectively, whereas, the mean scores of test group before treatment for employee performance (EP), agreeableness (Ag.) and self-image (SI) were 10.28, 90.23 and 33.98 respectively. There was significant difference between the pre and post treatment mean scores values of Employee Performance (Mean pre-treatment = 10.28 & Mean post-treatment = 23.57), Agreeableness (Mean pretreatment = 90.23 & Mean post-treatment = 213.61) and Self Image (Mean pre-treatment = 33.98 & Mean post-treatment = 80.37) of treatment group. Before and after application of treatment to treatment group, relationship between the employee performance, agreeableness and self-image among treatment and control group were also tested and analyzed. Findings revealed that there was positive and significant relationship between the employee performance and psychological traits of agreeableness and self-image among control as well as the treatment group. Findings related to the personality dimensions and employee performance proved that the personality traits of agreeableness and self image were predictive of employee work performance and improved level Introduction orporate world is facing cut throat competition and organizational battle for successful accomplishment of their goals. Increasing technological change, competition, globalization and expansion of different organizational sectors demand effective performance by employees. Effective employee performance needs high degree of physical, mental and psychological involvement. The role of performance management has also undergone a sea change when total quality management programme and six sigma quality control techniques received utmost importance for achievement of superior standards and quality performance.

Employee performance includes all activities related to job which organization expects from an employee and how effectively employee performs that. Employee performance evaluation is an ongoing process between the management and employees throughout the year. "Performance Management is both a strategic and an integrated approach to delivering successful results in organizations by improving the performance and developing the capabilities of teams and individuals" (Armstrong and Baron, 1998). An effective performance plan is essential for the smooth and predesigned running of organization, because employee performance is a critical resource to achieve the best possible results in this hyper-competitive, complex and global economy. Major elements of an effective performance design include clearly defined organizational strategies, identification of gap between current performance and targeted performance, work oriented employees behavior, effective psychological b) Psychological Traits and Employee Performance c) Agreeableness Agreeableness is a psychological trait or tendency which individual adjust and have the same opinion with others. The sub-traits of agreeableness include trust, morality, altruism, cooperation, modesty and sympathy. According to Rishipal & Jain N (2012) agreeable means, "being in harmony but it doesn't mean that the person will always agree with another's opinions". It does mean that individual will not show indifference to others and ready to listen even when others have conflicting views. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic (Rothman S, Contzer, E.P, 2003). Researchers have also suggested that agreeableness is the main concept to consider in the appraisal of individual differences (e.g. Havill, Besevegis & Mouroussaki, 1998). However, agreeableness seems to be most significant to job performance in situations where joint action and collaboration are required (Mount, Barrick & Stewart, 1998). In addition, agreeableness can push staff members to work together, which should result in effective working behaviors (Barrick and Mount, 1991).

? Perception about self and

? Others perception about individual Baumeister (1999) defines self image as "The individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is." Self image changes as a process taking place over lifetime. A healthy self image starts with learning to accept and love oneself. It also means being accepted and loved by others. Self esteem should be viewed as a continuum and can be high, medium or low and is often quantified as a number in empirical research (Saul Mc Leod, 2012). People with high self esteem consider themselves worthy and view themselves as equal to others. They do not pretend to be perfect, recognize their limitations and expect to grow and improve, whereas low self esteem people consider them-selves have little confidence in their abilities and question their self-worth (Clcurry, 2005).

In the competitive world, achievement of organizational success is very difficult. It requires effective and optimum utilization of all resources including employees. Employees performance is a major factor influencing organizational performance and 2011) has pointed that individual's behavior is a function of the values and attitudes he/she holds. If value and attitude can be changed, behavior will change itself. Various personality traits may interact with each other to blend and result in desirable, as well as undesirable workplace behaviors. Goldberg (1993) also came across in his research that indicated personnel's personality traits are valid predictors for different dimensions of job performance. Psychological features describe and predict human behavior. Rishipal and Chand P.K (2012) have pointed that personality traits of middle and senior level managers in private organizations has positive relationship with work behavior. Although there are many psychological factors attributed to employee performance, this study will focus on impact of agreeableness and self image on employee performance. One of the personality traits that may indicate the success of an employee may be agreeableness. In the present study, researchers have found out the consequences of change in degree of agreeableness and self image upon employee performance.

Organizational effectiveness and employee performance is very much affected by various factors like employee profile, technology, work environment, employer-employee relationship, physical fitness, psychological development, personal life, personality dimensions and health of employees. According to , managerial effectiveness and mature style of defense mechanism are positively associated. In another research, Rishipal (2012) has revealed that cognitive style is a predicator of managerial effectiveness. Employee performance could be influenced by psychological factors such as locus of control, agreeableness, need for achievement, cognitive style, neuroticism, self image, openness to experience, extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness etc. and interaction between these factors. An employee's personality will help to shape their reputation within the workplace and it may also affect teamwork or collaboration. Salgado J.F. (1997) indicates that agreeableness has close relationship with job performance. Other theorists and researchers have argued that agreeable people can better regulate their behavior (Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997;Jensen-Campbell, 2002) and self regulation has been causally associated with more constructive conflict resolution strategies (Finkel & Campbell, 2001).

Self image is a term which includes the comprehensive perception, assessment, idea and observation about self. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude towards the self. It is mental image or self-portrait. Self image also refers to an individual's overall self-evaluation of his/her competencies (Rosenberg, 1965). Employee's self image is how they perceive themselves. Elements of individual's self image may include: it might be affected by various factors including the degree of various personality dimensions and traits such as locus of control, agreeableness, need for achievement, cognitive style, neuroticism, self image, openness to experience, extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness etc. According to Rishipal & Jain N. (2012) the individuals who are motivated by affiliation have an urge for a friendly and supportive environment. Such individuals are effective performers in a team. Most of the previous studies of employees performance have examined the moderating influence of mental ability (Wright, Kacmar, McMahan, & Deleeuw, 1995) or situational variables, such as autonomy (Barrick & Mount, 1993) and organizational politics (Hochwarter, Witt, & Kacmar, 2000) not the relationship among variables studied in present research. So, there was need to conduct such study which could analyze the impact of psychological traits on employee performance. Present study is an effort to investigate and understand the dimensions of effective employee performance, agreeableness and self image with a new perspective of enquiring the relationship among these and how they can influence each other. Besides this, present study has also investigated how Behavior Modification Therapy can affect the psychological traits of agreeableness and self image and consequently the impact of enhanced agreeableness and self image improves the employee performance.

The study was aimed to investigate and understand the relationship between agreeableness, self image and employee performance. Conduction of 1) To enquire the relationship of agreeableness and self image with employee performance. 2) To understand the difference of the relationship between agreeableness and employee performance of high and low performer employees and also the relationship between self image and employee performance among high and low performer employees.

Therapy on the psychological traits of self image and agreeableness and also their simultaneous consequential impact on the employee performance.

IV.

1) Employee performance will be positively associated with agreeableness and self image. 2) High performer employees will have high degree of agreeableness and self image in comparison to low performer employees.

3) The Behaviour Modification Therapy will certainly enhance the degree of agreeableness and self image in treatment group of employees and as a result improved agreeableness and self image will further improve the employee performance.

Present research has been conducted by using before and after with control group type of research design. Research design can be better understood with the help of following table.

To conduct the research a sample of 589 employees having experience of more than three year and working with various governmental and nongovernmental organizations was taken randomly on availability basis. Selected employees were tested for their capability of performance and categorized as high and low performers. Subjects included in the category of high performers were employees whose score was twenty percent more than the mean employee performance score. Low performer's category included the employees whose score was twenty percent less than the mean employee performance score. After such categorization, subjects from high and low performers categories were tested for agreeableness traits of employee performance, agreeableness and self image, two groups were formed. From the high performer employees' category a group of 40 such subjects was selected which were having high agreeableness and high self image. Similarly from the low performer employee's category a group of 40 subjects was selected which were having low agreeableness and low self-image. For deciding the high and low agreeableness and self image tendency, same criteria was used as it was used in the case of employee performance i.e. twenty percent more and less than mean scores for high and low degree of and self image. After testing the subjects of both the high and low performer category for their personality agreeableness and self-image respectively. By this method two groups were formed each consisting of 40 subjects. First group of high performers was having higher degree of employee performance, agreeableness and self image. Second group was also having 40 subjects with lower tendency of employee performance, agreeableness and self image. The first group having the tendency of high employee performance, agreeableness and self image was declared as control group whereas second group i.e. the subjects having lower tendency of employee performance, agreeableness and self image was considered as treatment group. The treatment group was given the "Behavior Modification Therapy" based upon the techniques of observation and suggestion for a period of four months. On completion of the therapy, after four months, both the control and treatment group were retested for employee performance, agreeableness and self image by using the same research tools. Pre and post treatment results and findings of treatment and control group were analyzed and compared.

Results and findings for the research were obtained by using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. A Subjects of the treatment group were also given counselling sessions, individually or in small groups, for the enhancement of their Agreeableness and self Image for a period of 4 months on a regular interval of one week by using. After giving Behaviour Modification Therapy to the treatment group, both the control and treatment groups were retested for all the three variables of Employee Performance, Agreeableness and Self Image. Results and findings worked out so for control and treatment groups has been given in the results and discussions.

Employees of test group were given treatment by using "Behaviour Modification Therapy" based upon the researcher's and subject's personal observation and suggestions during their work performance regarding tendency of agreeableness and self image. Subjects were also guided by the instructions of researchers and emplyee's self suggestion technique to improve the tendency of agreeableness and self image.

Data was collected by using questionnaire method. Agreeableness Measuring Scale (AMS) developed by Rishipal & Jain N (2012), State Self-Esteem scale (SSES) developed by Heatherton & Polivy (1991) and for measuring employee's performance an inventory type questionnaire consisting of 10 items, developed and prepared by the researchers were used for measuring agreeableness, self image and employee performance respectively. The reliability of items included in all scales used in the research has been measured by using Cronbach's alpha technique. The reliability of various scales was found 0.815, 0.830 and 0.795 for employee performance, agreeableness and self image respectively. Table (3) depicts the values of coefficient of correlation, coefficient of determination and adjusted r 2 calculated by using Karl Pearson method with t value, standard error and p value. The value of coefficient of correlation was found to be r = 0.864 between the variables of Employee Performance and Agreeableness and the r 2 value between these two variables was found to be 0.746 with adjusted r 2 = 0.502, these values show a positive and significant relationship between the Employee Performance and tendency of Agreeableness. The t value between employee performance and agreeableness shown in the same table (3) was found to be (t = 3.79, p = 0.031) which supports the finding of positive and significant correlation between the Employee Performance and the tendency of Agreeableness.

The value of coefficient of correlation between the variables of Employee Performance and Self Image was found, r = 0.809 and the r 2 value between these two variables was 0.654 with adjusted r 2 = 0.356, which again shows a positive and significant correlation between the Employee Performance and Self Image. The t value between these two variables i.e. EP & SI shown in the table (3) was found to be (t = 3.04, p = 0.048) which supports the findings of a positive and significant correlation between Employee Performance and Self Image.

The value of coefficient of correlation among Agreeableness and Self Image was found to be r=0.795 and the r 2 value between these two variables was found to be 0.632 with adjusted r 2 = 0.590, this shows a positive and significant correlation between Agreeableness and Self Image. The t value between these two variables (t = 3.37, p = 0.043) also supports the findings of positive and significant correlation. Present research was an effort to find out the effect of enhancement in the tendency of Agreeableness and Self Image upon the Employee Performance. So, the subjects were divided into the two categories of high performer employees and low performer employees on the basis of their performance. Table (4) shows the categorization of the subjects on the basis of their employee performance as high and low performers. Subjects scored 20% more than the mean Employee Performance score were taken as high performers and subjects having Employee Performance score 20% less than the mean performance score were categorized as low performers. Total 192 subjects were found high performers, 198 low performers and 199 were in others category. Subjects were further grouped on the basis of higher tendencies of Ag & SI as shown in Table (4). 192 subjects selected as high performers were further grouped on the basis of their higher tendency of Ag and SI. Subjects among high performers, who were having higher tendency of Ag & SI i.e. who scored 20% more than mean Ag. & SI score values were grouped as high performers group. Whereas from low employee performance category subjects with lower tendency of Ag. & SI i.e. who scored 20% less than the mean Ag. & SI score values were grouped as low performers group. Table (8) presents descriptive statistical results of control and treatment group after application of treatment on subjects of test group only by using the techniques of observation and suggestion based upon the Behaviour Modification Therapy. After giving the treatment to the specified group, both the control and treatment groups were re-tested after a period of 4 months for the dimensions of EP, Ag. and SI. When the results of control group were compared (this group was not given any treatment) with their mean scores recorded four months back, there was no significant difference in the mean scores of this group even after the duration of 4 months. Table (10) shows inter and intra group relationship between EP & SI among control and treatment group after using the treatment on test group. The results revealed that EP & SI were positively and significantly correlated (r cg = 0.754, r 2 cg = 0.568 and r tg = 0.801, r 2 tg = 0.641) among both the groups. The t values (t cg = 3.11 p = 0.028, t tg = 2.59 p = 0.044) have also supported the findings. Hypotheses Testing a) Hypothesis 1 Employee performance will be positively associated with agreeableness and self image.

Table (7) shows that employee performance was positively linked to agreeableness and self image. So, the null hypothesis is true and accepted by the findings of research. Viswanathan R. (2011) states in his research that employee personality is closely linked with organizational performance through its effect on employees' behavior, attitudes and service performance. Research of Fisher D.c. and Boyle J.G. (1997) also supports that personality measures predict contextual and motivational aspects of performance. There is also evidence that personality sometimes b) Hypothesis 2 High performer employees will have high degree of agreeableness and self image in comparison to low performer employees.

Table (7) exhibits that high performer employees were having high degree of agreeableness and self image whereas the tendency of agreeableness and self image for low performing employees was lower. So, Hypothesis 2 is accepted. The results are also supported by the research of Nariripour A.A., Tabibi J.S. and Beydokhti T.T. (2011), which found that there is positive significant relationship between performance of managers with extroversion, openness and agreeableness. c) Hypothesis 3:

The Behaviour Modification Therapy will certainly enhance the degree of agreeableness and self image in treatment group of employees and as a result improved agreeableness and self image will further improve the employee performance. Findings:

The critical analysis of Table (7), ( 8) and ( 13) shows that the mean scores of agreeableness and selfimage have improved as a result of Behaviour Modification Therapy and accordingly this improvement in Ag. and SI has further improved the employee performance. Table (13) has also supported the approval and acceptance of Hypothesis 3 as there is significant impact of treatment on the test group (Treatment Effect = 13.09). Coefficient of determination (r 2 cg = 0.616, adjusted r 2 cg = 0.596 and r 2 tg = 0.624, adjusted r 2 tg = 0.601) shows that employee performance was dependent on Agreeableness and Self Image and in both control group and treatment group.