Organizational Behavior

Table of Content

1.  Background of Zhou Qunfei
2.  Personality and Values

            2.1 The Big 5 Personality Model

            2.2 Core self-evaluation

            2.3 Self-monitoring

            2.4 Proactive personality

            2.5 Psychopathy

      3.   Motivation Concepts

            3.1 Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory

            3.2 Self-determination theory

            3.3 McClelland’s Theory of Needs

            3.4 Goal-setting theory

            3.5 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Actualization need

      4.   Leadership

            4.1 Trait-theories of Leadership

            4.2 Behavioral-theories of Leadership

            4.3 Transformational Leadership

      5.   References

1. Background

In this paper, we will focus on her career which are her early background, personality, motivation and leadership.  Zhou Qunfei, 45, the founder of touch-screen maker Lens Technology and was named the Chinese richest woman with a personal fortune valued at US$10 billion(Daniel. R. , 2015).

She was born in a poor family in Xiangxiang, Hunnan in 1970. Her father was blind because of an explosion happened when he was working in 1960s. Her mother died of great stress when Zhou was at 5. Zhou quitted school at age 16 and became a migrant worker working in a watch lenses factory in Shenzhen(Daniel, 2015).  She worked in the morning and studied at university at night. She at first wrote a letter to quit the job but finally got appreciation from her boss and received promotion. Staying at the factory for 3 years time, Zhou has gotten another several times of promotions because she helped the company earn great profit. Additionally, the department managed by her became the most profitable whereas she quitted the job eventually.

In 1993, she started her own business with her family members in Shenzhen and engaged in making parts for watches. In 2001, Zhou's firm started to supply glass screens to TCL. In 2003, she received purchase orders from Motorola for developing a glass screen for their new device, the Razr V3. She launched Lens Technology in the same year, developing the start-up into the touch-screen sector's dominant player, supplying products made by Apple, Samsung and Huawei. Today, Lens has more than 80000 staffs. Last year, Lens posted a net profit of 1.18 billion yuan on revenue of 14.5 billion yuan(Daniel, 2015).

"I'm not qualified to be a high-profile person," Hunan Daily quoted her as saying. "I think it's important not to get carried away when you are successful - and not to let yourself feel gloomy when times are bad"(Daniel, 2015).

2.  Personality and Values

The followings are going to explain how Zhou’s career illustrated the Big 5 Personality Model, and there are also some other traits of personality we can find from Zhou.

2.1 The Big 5 Personality Model

To begin with, Zhou’s career can be applied to The Big 5 Personality Model. The 5 factors which are neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness determine how successful she is.

Firstly, Zhou has attained a high score in openness to experience including her active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity. Zhou is a creative person which is shown when we are reviewing her previous working experiences. In 1990, she was a migrant worker in a watch glass factory. The decision she made was applying screen printing techniques to the production procedure. As a result, the factory became more efficient. Zhou is also willing to learn. Apart from learning in the factory, she went to school at night. At that moment, she knew how to entry custom declaration, drive car and handle accounting stuffs. Besides, according to Costa and McCrae (1992), people who scored low in openness to experience tend to be traditional and have narrow range of interests, and vice versa. Indeed, as mentioned, Zhou not only has a desire to learn, but also puts what she learn into practice. These are the stepping stone for her to climb the career ladder, overcome the obstacles and achieve the goals.  Therefore, Zhou has a high ranking in openness to experience.

Secondly, Zhou is high in conscientiousness. People in this group are responsible, organized, dependable and persistent. Undoubtedly, Zhou is a responsible and organized boss and her leadership makes Lens Technology turn from a small local firm to a multibillion-dollar international renowned operation. Moverover, one of the particular advantages of her is being determined. In 2003, Zhou was the owner of a watch glass factory, the success of the factory did not make her complacent. Meanwhile, she received an unexpected chance from Motorola which was to help them develop a glass screen. It was a great opportunity but also a big risk. However, Zhou seized it without any hesitation. At the same time, She established Lens Technology, made huge investment and focused on making mobile glass screen. In addition, Zhou is persistent in glass technology. “She’ll sometimes sit down and work as an operator to see if there’s anything wrong with the process,” said James Zhao, a general manager at Lens Technology. It implies that She fully understand the process and know how it works with her experiences.

Thirdly,  Zhou has good performance in agreeableness. It is about sociality and relationships in operation. According to National Business Daily, Lens Technology provides computer rooms, badminton courts, basketball courts and table tennis rooms for employees’ recreation. The food court invites people to do surveys in order to make improvements, which shows that Zhou actually values the mental healths of her employees. Also, “These 20 years, I have been passed through many obstacles, and I sold my house twice in order to pay back salaries to my staff.” Zhou said in a 2014 meeting(National Business Daily, 2015). This shows Zhou’s care for her employees.

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