CHAPTER 4: INDIVIDUAL ATTITUDES AND

BEHAVIORS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

 Identify the major work attitudes that affect work behaviors

 List the key set of behaviors that matter for organizational performance
 Understand the link between work attitudes and ethics
 Understand cross-cultural differences in job attitudes and behaviors at work
WORK ATTITUDES

An attitude refers to our opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment
 Job satisfaction – feelings people have toward their job – numerous studies have been
conducted and 90% say they are at least somewhat satisfied
 Organizational commitment – emotional attachment people have to the company they
work for – high degree of overlap between job satisfaction and organizational commitment

Why do we care about these 2 work attitudes?

WHAT CAUSES POSITIVE WORK ATTITUDES?

 Personality – generally positive people tend to be more satisfied with their jobs and more
committed to their companies than generally negative people – OCEAN
 Person-Environment Fit – when our abilities match job demands and our values match
company values, we tend to be more satisfied with our job and more committed
 Job Characteristics – using a variety of skills, having autonomy, receiving feedback, task
significance
 Psychological Contract – people come to a job with expectations – unwritten understanding
about what the employee will bring to work and what the organization will provide in exchange
 Organizational Justice – fairness
 Relationships at Work – trust-based, respect, value opinions
 Stress – role ambiguity (vagueness in relation to what our responsibilities are), role conflict
(contradictory demands) – “bad” stress and “good” stress
 Work-Life Balance
GROUP DISCUSSION
 1. What is the difference between job satisfaction and organizational commitment? Which
do you think would be more strongly related to performance? Which would be more
strongly related to turnover?
 2. Do you think making employees happier at work is a good way of motivating people?
When would high satisfaction not be related to high performance?
 3. In your opinion, what are the three most important factors that make people dissatisfied
with their job? What are the three most important factors relating to organizational
commitment?
 4. How important is pay in making people attached to a company and making employees
satisfied?
 5. Do you think younger and older people are similar in what makes them happier at work
and committed to their companies? Do you think there are male–female differences?
Explain your answers.
4 KEY WORK BEHAVIORS FOR OB

 Job performance – performance level on factors included in the job description

 Quality and quantity, accuracy and speed, effectiveness

 Organizational Citizenship Behaviors – voluntary behaviors employees perform to help

others and benefit the organization
 Absenteeism – unscheduled absences from work
 Turnover – employees leaving the organization
JOB PERFORMANCE

 General mental abilities – reasoning, verbal and numerical skills, analytical skills, and
overall intelligence
 Highly complex jobs – much more critical to have high general mental abilities
 Sales, management, engineering, etc

 Jobs lower in complexity – less critical, but still required

 Clerical work, manual labor

 How we are treated – if we are treated well we want to reciprocate

 Stress – high levels drain mental energy detracting from performance
 Work attitudes – job satisfaction may correlate with performance
 Personality – particularly conscientiousness
ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS

 Motivation is more important to OCB than to job performance

 How we are treated by the people around us
 Good relationship with managers and peers
 Trust

 In a high quality relationship we feel the obligation to maintain the relationship and
reciprocate
 Personality – Conscientious, agreeable, and are positive tend to perform OCB more often
 Job attitudes – happier, more committed people engage in more OCB
 Newer studies warn of the dangers of “citizenship pressure” (Bolino, et. al., 2010)
ABSENTEEISM

 Costly to organizations
 Unavoidable reasons – health
 Companies are investing in the health of their employees have reduced absenteeism – new smoking
policy
 Work-life Balance – caring for sick family member, events, studying
 May offer more flexibility

 Withdrawal – dissatisfied and low organizational commitment are likely to be absent more
often
 May investigate the causes of dissatisfaction and rectify to reduce absenteeism

 Research does not reveal a consistent link between personality and absenteeism – but a
correlation between age and absenteeism – why?
TURNOVER

 Harmful consequences to an organization – poor customer service or performance

 Time required for replacement – lower productivity
 Is turnover always bad?
 Work attitudes – more likely to leave if they are unhappy and not attached to their
companies – depends on external factors such as unemployment rate
 Stress – if a stressful job is a ‘stepping stone’ employees are more likely to stay
 Personality – conscientious, agreeable, and emotionally stable are less likely to quit
 Age, time at the company and life stage
GROUP DISCUSSION

 1. What is the difference between performance and organizational citizenship behaviors?

How would you increase someone’s performance? How would you increase citizenship
behaviors?
 2. Given the factors correlated with job performance, how would you identify future high
performers?
 3. What are the major causes of absenteeism at work? How can companies minimize the
level of absenteeism that takes place?
 4. In some companies, managers are rewarded for minimizing the turnover within their
department or branch. A part of their bonus is tied directly to keeping the level of turnover
below a minimum. What do you think about the potential effectiveness of these programs?
Do you see any downsides to such programs?
ETHICS AND NATIONAL CULTURE
 Studies show that when an organization has a moral climate that values doing the right thing,
people tend to be happier at work, more committed to their companies and less likely to want
to leave
 An ethical climate is related to performing more OCB.
 Do people behave more ethically if they are happier and more committed to the company?
 May prevent you from seeing unethical behaviors
 Whistleblowers (reporting wrongdoing) – were more likely to only have moderate levels of commitment

 One way of reducing unethical behavior is to monitor employees closely – may reduce job
satisfaction and commitment – better to create an ethical climate and making ethics a shared
organizational value.
 Work-family conflict may only lower job satisfaction in individualistic cultures
 Autonomy and empowerment are valued in North America and can lead to higher job
satisfaction, but in India it is related to lower job satisfaction
 In China, absence from work because of illness, stress or depression was relatively
unacceptable, while in Canada, these reasons are viewed as legitimate
ETHICAL DILEMMA (4.7 EXERCISES) – GROUP DISCUSSION

You are a department manager in an advertising agency. The employees of the department
have recently completed an attitude survey. Three employees in your department reported
that they were harassed by senior people in the department and they are experiencing a
hostile work environment. You do not know who these people are, but you feel that you need
to do something.The surveys were filled out confidentially, and employees were assured that
their identities would not be revealed to management. You feel that you can identify who they
are because the person in HR who administered the survey is a friend of yours and that
person can tell you the demographics of the employees, which would help you identify them.
 1. Should you ask for the identity-revealing information? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of finding out the identity of these people?
 2. How would you handle a situation like this now and in the future?