CHAPTER TWO

FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR

L e a r n i n g Objectives:
After studying this chapter, you will be able to
1. Define the biographical characteristics of individuals.
2. Understand the impact of biographical characteristics on individual performance
3. Understand individual’s value systems.
4. State type of attitudes and their implication for individual behaviour.

Activity
1. Consider five individuals in your locality; do they have the same behaviour?
2. Refer to question 1; please outline their behavioural differences among them.
3. What challenges do you face working with these individuals?

Individuals are different in terms of different variables such as biographic characteristics, ability,
values, attitudes, personality, perception, motivation and so on. Such differences can bring different
behavioural patterns among individuals. Hence this chapter deals with the foundations of individual
behaviour and the subsequent chapters will deal with the rest of variables the display individual
behaviour.

2.1. Biographical Characteristics

Biographical characteristics such as age, gender, race, disability, and length of service are some of the most
obvious ways employees differ. Let’s look how age and gender can affect individuals’ behavior.
Age
The relationship between age and job performance is likely to be an issue of increasing importance during the
next decade for at least three reasons. First, belief is widespread that job performance declines with increasing
age. Regardless of whether this is true, a lot of people believe it and act on it. Second, the workforce is aging.
Many employers recognize that older workers represent a huge potential pool of high-quality applicants.
Now let’s take a look at the evidence. What effect does age actually have on turnover, absenteeism,
productivity, and satisfaction? The older you get, the less likely you are to quit your job. That conclusion is
based on studies of the age–turnover relationship. 9 Of course, this shouldn’t be too surprising. As workers
get older, they have fewer alternative job opportunities as their skills have become more specialized to certain
types of work. Their long tenure also tends to provide them with higher wage rates, longer paid vacations, and
more attractive pension benefits. It’s tempting to assume that age is also inversely related to absenteeism.
After all, if older workers are less likely to quit, won’t they also demonstrate higher stability by coming to
work more regularly? Not necessarily. Most studies do show an inverse relationship, but close examination
finds it is partially a function of whether the absence is avoidable or unavoidable. In general, older employees
Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)
have lower rates of avoidable absence than do younger employees. However, they have equal rates of
unavoidable absence, such as sickness absences. How does age affect productivity? Many believe
productivity declines with age. It is often assumed that skills like speed, agility, strength, and coordination
decay over time and that prolonged job boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation contribute to reduced
productivity.

Sex
Few issues initiate more debates, misconceptions, and unsupported opinions than whether women perform as
well on jobs as men do.
The best place to begin to consider this is with the recognition that few, if any, important differences between
men and women affect job performance. There are no consistent male–female differences in problem-solving
ability, analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation, sociability, or learning ability. 16 Psychological
studies have found women are more agreeable and willing to conform to authority, whereas men are more
aggressive and more likely to have expectations of success, but those differences are minor.
Given the significantly increased female participation in the workforce over the past 40 years and the
rethinking of what constitutes male and female roles, we can assume no significant difference in job
productivity between men and women.
Unfortunately, sex roles still affect our perceptions. For example, women who succeed in traditionally male
domains are perceived as less likable, more hostile, and less desirable as supervisors. Interestingly, research
also suggests that women believe sex-based discrimination is more prevalent than do male employees, and
these beliefs are especially pronounced among women who work with a large proportion of men. One issue
that does seem to differ between men and women, especially when the employee has preschool-age children,
is preference for work schedules. Working mothers are more likely to prefer part-time work, flexible work
schedules, and telecommuting in order to accommodate their family responsibilities. Women also prefer jobs
that encourage work–life balance, which has the effect of limiting their options for career advancement.
What about absence and turnover rates? Are women less stable employees than men? First, evidence from a
study of nearly 500,000 professional employees indicates significant differences, with women more likely to
turn over than men. Women also have higher rates of absenteeism than men do.
The role of women has definitely changed over the past generation. Men are increasingly sharing
responsibility for child care, and an increasing number report feeling a conflict between their home
responsibilities and their work lives. One interesting finding is that regardless of sex, parents were rated
lower in job commitment, achievement striving, and dependability than individuals without children, but
mothers were rated especially low in competence.

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

2.2. Ability
What does ability mean? As we use the term, ability is an individual’s current capacity to perform the
various tasks in a job. Overall abilities are essentially made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and
physical.
Intellectual Abilities
Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities— thinking, reasoning, and problem
solving. Most societies place a high value on intelligence, and for good reason. Smart people generally earn
more money and attain higher levels of education. They are also more likely to emerge as leaders of groups.
Jobs differ in the demands they place on intellectual abilities. The more complex a job in terms of
information-processing demands, the more general intelligence and verbal abilities will be necessary to
perform successfully.

Physical Abilities
Though the changing nature of work suggests intellectual abilities are increasingly important for many jobs,
physical abilities have been and will remain valuable. Research on hundreds of jobs has identified nine basic
abilities needed in the performance of physical tasks. Individuals differ in the extent to which they have each
of these abilities. Not surprisingly, there is also little relationship among them: a high score on one is no
assurance of a high score on others. High employee performance is likely to be achieved when management
has ascertained the extent to which a job requires each of the nine abilities and then ensures that
Employees in that job have those abilities.

In general we can readily observe biographical characteristics, but that doesn’t mean we should explicitly use
them in management decisions. Most research shows fairly minimal effects of biographical characteristics on
job performance. We also need to be aware of implicit biases we or other managers may have. An effective
selection process will improve the fit between employees and job requirements. A job analysis will provide
information about jobs currently being done and the abilities individuals need to perform the jobs adequately.
Applicants can then be tested, interviewed, and evaluated on the degree to which they possess the necessary
abilities.

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

2.3. Attitude

You just ask a question anyone, “Are you satisfied with your Job”? Are you loyal to the company? Are you
satisfied with the services that you obtain from Micro Link Information Technology and Business College?
Can you say yourself, “I like my MBA”, and these are all attitudes expressed by people. Thus, attitude is the
expression of feeling about something.
Definition of Attitudes: Two important definitions on attitude are given below:
“Attitude is the persistent tendency to feel and behave in a favourable or unfavourable way towards some
object, person, or ideas” – Reitz.
“Attitudes are evaluation statements either favourable or unfavourable or unfavourable concerning objects,
people or events. They reflect how one feels about something” – Robbins.

Attitudes and values:

There are differences between values and attitudes. Attitudes essentially represent predisposition to respond.
Values focus on the judgment of what ought to be. This judgment can represent the specific manifestation of
a determining tendency below the behaviour. Attitudes represent several beliefs focused on a specific object
or situation. Value , on the other hand, represents a single belief that transcendentally guides actions and
judgments across objects and situations, Finally, a value stands in relation to some social or cultural standards
or norms while attitudes are personal experiences.
Attitudes and Opinions
An opinion is an expression of an evaluative judgment or point of view regarding a specific topic or subject.
An attitude is somewhat generalized (such as liking or not liking a person’s supervisor), whereas an opinion
typically is an interpretation regarding a specific matter-(such as saying that the boss plays favourites in
granting promotions).
Attitude, Beliefs and Ideology
A belief is a judgment about something. For example, a belief that the world is round is a judgement about its
form. Many of our beliefs, of course, are emotionally neutral; others are definitely favourable or unfavourable
towards some object. For example, a favourable attitude towards religion may involve beliefs. The religion
helps to curb delinquency, and worshippers are better citizens than are non-believers. People who stay away
from temples are unhappy and immoral, and so on.
When beliefs become organized into systems, they are called ideologies. The capitalist ideology, for example,
is a set of beliefs that a free enterprise economy is maximally productive; that competition in the long run
brings down prices and raises quality; and that events in the marketplace do and should determine what is
Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)
produced.

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

Sources of Attitudes:
The sources of a person’s attitude are a mixture of-
Personal experiences
Association
Family
Peer groups and society
Models and
Institutional factors.
Personal Experiences: People form attitudes by coming in direct contact with an object. By the time a
person goes for work in a specified organisation, he holds many attitudes towards the type of job of that is
acceptable to him, the expected pay, working conditions and supervision.
Association: People are highly influenced by the major groups or associations to which they belong,
geographic region, religion, educational background, race, sex, age and income-class-all strongly influence
attitudes. The nearer the group the stronger is the group influence on the attitudes of the individual.
Family: Family is the primary group that an individual belongs to. Family exerts high influence on the initial
core of attitudes held by an individual. Individuals develop certain attitudes from family members-parents,
brother, sister, etc. The family characteristics influence the individual’s early attitude patterns.
Peer Groups: As people approach their adulthood, they increasingly rely on their peer groups for approval /
attitude. How others judge an individual largely determine his self-image and approval-seeking behaviour.
Models: Some of the attitudes are developed through imitation of models. The process is something like this;
in a particular situation, we see how another person behaves. We correctly or incorrectly interpret his
behaviour as representing certain attitudes and beliefs.
Institutional Factors; Many institutional factors function as sources and support our attitudes and beliefs.
For example, consider the description of a certain temple Aarati. When the people come into this temple, they
bow to pray, sit with heads bowed. Their clothes are clean and freshly washed. When the Pujari signals and is
with Aarati all start singing Bhajan and clap. The entire process is devoted to a ritual. From this we can get an
idea as to the general character of the religious attitudes and beliefs.
Measurement of Attitudes
Though attitude is a hypothetical construct, it also subject to measurement.
The most common and frequently used measures of attitudes are the questionnaires which ask the respondents
to evaluate and rate their attitude towards a particular object directly, and to respond favourably or
unfavourably about his belief regarding the object. Generally, bipolar scales are used to assess the attitudes of
individual employees in an organisation. Different types of scales are in use with respect to measurement of
attitudes viz., Thurstone’s scale, Likert’s scale , Bogardus’s social distance scale etc.
Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)
Thurstone’s scale: The statements, both favourable and unfavourable, relating to the area in
which attitude were to be measured are placed into eleven piles; one representing the most
favourable one and one representing the unfavourable. Individuals will then be asked to check
those statements with which they agreed. The average of the scale values of the items, which
they accepted, will give an indication of the placement of a person along the attitude continuum.
Likert’s scale: Another scale that is relatively easy when compared to the earlier one is the one
that is developed by Rensis Likert.
Likert’s scale consists of five boxes ranging from ’strongly agree’’ to ‘strongly disagree’’ Under
each statement of attitude the respondent will be given a chance to check one of the five boxes
and finally all the ratings are summed up. The Likert’s scale is also known summed-rating
measure, because several statements are collected in an attitude area such as one’s attitude about
a job, and the scales are added up or summed to obtain a person’s attitude towards his job, The
summed-rating scale provides a means of measuring the intensity of one’s attitude towards a
particular object / event in addition to the direction.
Bogardus’s social distance scale: Perhaps the simple scale of measuring attitudes is the social
distance scale developed by Bogardus in 1925. The scale is composed of a large number of
statements regarding national, racial or ethnic groups.
Guttman’s scale: Guttman in 1950 developed a cumulative scaling technique to measure
attitudes. In the scale of one’s attitude toward work, an employee might be presented with six
statements displaying successively higher degrees of dissatisfaction. It is assumed that the
employee will reach some point beyond which he can no longer agree. The main threshold is
considered to be the degree of satisfaction.
Measuring attitudes by means of projective tests: Other methods are, therefore, sometimes
required to obtain a truer picture of attitudes. One such method is the projective test, which
requires a person to respond to an unstructured stimulus situation. The rationale behind such tests
is that, when the stimulus situation is unstructured, mainly his motives, expectations, and other
personal factors determine the individual’s responses. Projective tests of attitude are particularly
valuable in the study of prejudice, since so many of our prejudices operate at an unconscious
level or are deliberately disguised to conform to prevailing taboos-against the expression of overt
prejudice. There are good many other scales to measure attitudes. From a practical standpoint,
one should either use a standard questionnaire or consultant expert to obtain a valid estimate of

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

attitudes of the employees in an organisation.
Forms of Attitudes: The other forms of attitude and job satisfactions and attitudes and job
satisfaction are:
Job satisfaction
In organisation behaviour, perhaps the attitude of greatest interest is the general attitude of
employees towards work or towards a job, often called job satisfaction. The sources of job
satisfaction are of particular interest because they often suggest corrective action that can be
taken.
Sources of Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is sometimes regarded as a single concept: that is, whether a person is satisfied
or not satisfied with the job. However, it actually is a collection of specific job satisfaction- the
attitudes that can be related to various aspects of the job. For example a popular measure of job
descriptive index (JDI) measures satisfaction in terms of five specific aspects of a person’s job:
pay, promotion, supervision, the work itself, and co-workers. Obviously, an employee may be
satisfied with some aspects of the job and, at the same time, be satisfied with others.
Attitudes and commitment:
Another important work attitude that has a bearing on organisation behaviour is commitment to
the organisation.
Organisation Commitment refers to the strength of an employee’s involvement in the
organisation and identification with it. Strong organisation commitment is characterized by; a
belief in and acceptance of the organisation’s goals and values a willingness to exert
considerable effort on behalf of the organisation; and a desire to remain with the organisation.
Organisational commitment goes beyond loyalty to include active contribution to accomplishing
organisational goals. The concept of organisational commitment represents a broader work
attitude than job satisfaction because it applies to the entire organisation than just a mere job.
Further, it is likely to be more stable than job satisfaction because day-to-day events are not
likely to affect it.

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

Check your progress:
Match the following:
A B
1. Expressed feelings 1 Values
2. Evaluative Judgment 2. Family
3. A source of attitude 3. Attitude
Summary and 4. Litter’s scale 4. Measurement of attitude
5. Job satisfaction 5. A type of attitude
Implications for
Managers

Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warnings of
potential problems and influence behavior. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee
of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers
can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organizational
effectiveness. Some takeaway lessons from the study of attitudes include the following: Satisfied
and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors.
They also perform better on the job.

Attitudes reflect the negative or positive feeling of a person towards something. Job
satisfaction and organizational commitment are two important types of attitudes. There are
various sources and measurement of attitudes. Given that managers want to keep resignations
and absences down—especially among their most productive employees—they’ll want to do
things that generate positive job attitudes. Managers will also want to measure job attitudes
effectively so they can tell how employees are reacting to their work. As one review put it, “A
sound measurement of overall job attitude is one of the most useful pieces of information an
organization can have about its employees.” The most important thing managers can do to
raise employee satisfaction is focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as making the work
challenging and interesting.

Review Questions

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)

 1. Explain the relationship between age, gender and marital status on individual’s
productivity, absenteeism and turnover.
2. What are the implications of individuals’ difference on ability to managers?
3. What are the major components of attitudes?
4. How do we measure attitude?
5. Define organisational commitment and organizational citizenship.

Kahsu Mebrahtu Areaya (Assistant Professor)