What are Values?

 We can define values as the moral principles or standards of behaviour. Thus, values

often stand as the moral ethics of a person or a society. In brief, values are those what
are known as the code of conduct f
 or a person.
 Thus, they are the fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate the attitudes or actions
of a person. Values are highlighted under ethical studies. Moreover, family, religion,
culture, and moral figures in the society strongly influence the values. Hence, values
serve as the guiding principles for a person in their lives.
 Likewise, values may also differ from one person to another, from one culture to
another, and also from one place to another. Nevertheless, there are some universal
values such as integrity, kindness, honesty, love, compassion, justice, equality,
humbleness, and, freedom.
 Moreover, a workplace code of conduct also highlights the values. Here, they
emphasize the standards of behaviour for those in the company. These are known as
cooperate values, workplace values, etc.

What are Attitudes

 Values have major influence on a person's behaviour and attitude and serve as broad
guidelines in all situations. The values that are important to people tend to affect the
types of decisions they make, how they perceive their environment, and their actual
behaviours.
 Moreover, people are more likely to accept job offers when the company possesses
the values people care about. Value attainment is one reason why people stay in a
company, and when an organization does not help them attain their values, they are
 more likely to decide to leave if they are dissatisfied with the job itself. Types of
Values Allport and his associates categorized values into six types:
1. Theoretical: Interest in the discovery of truth through reasoning and systematic thinking.
2. Economic: Interest in usefulness and practicality, including the accumulation of wealth.
3. Aesthetic: Interest in beauty, form and artistic harmony.
4. Social: Interest in people and love as a human relationship.
5. Political: Interest in gaining power and influencing people.
6. Religious: Interest in unity and understanding the cosmos as a whole.
Rokeach distinguishes between two types of values:
Instrumental and Terminal
. Terminal values are goals that a person wants to achieve in life like wanting to be successful
or growth in career.
Instrumental values are means to achieve goals. Instrumental values include ambition,
honesty, self-sufficiency and courageousness.
Similarities between Values and Attitudes
1. Values and attitudes are two important variables influencing cognitive process and
behavior.
2. They are learned and acquired essentially from the same sources.
3. They last and are resistant to change.
4. They have reciprocal influence and are used interchangeably. Difference between Values
and Attitudes Values Attitudes Values help to guide our behavior.
 Attitudes are the response that is a result of our values. Values decide what we think
as for right, wrong, good, or unjust.
 Attitudes are our likes and dislike towards things, people, and objects.
 Values are more or less permanent in nature. Attitudes are changeable with favorable
experiences. They represent single belief that, guides actions and judgment across
objects and They represent several beliefs focused on a specific object or situation
 Attitudes are judgments, standpoints or opinions about a certain subject matter or a
person. These standpoints or opinions are formed based upon that person’s values and
emotions. In brief, attitudes are the personal responses according to that person’s
preference.

Moreover, attitudes are composed of three main components as affective, behavioural and
cognitive. It is known as the ABC model of attitudes.
Affective – refers to the part of attitudes that drives a person’s feelings
Behavioural – refers to the behaviour a person displays or how one actually reacts in
accordance to their attitude in a particular situation.
Cognitive – refers to a person’s opinion, beliefs or thought about a subject matter or a person.
Relationship Between Values
 Values stand as the fundamentals of one’s belief and guide.
 Accordingly, one’s attitudes build up based on a person’s moral values.
 Both influence a person’s cognitive process and
 Value and attitudes are both subjected to change with different social interactions
and social experiences of a persons
Accordingly, two people can have negative attitudes or positive attitudes on the same subject.
For instance, consider the varied attitudes people have on social issues such as matrimony,
abortions, homosexuality, etc. Also, how a person responds to a situation reflects that
person’s attitudes.

The main types of job-related attitudes are:

Job Satisfaction
 Job Involvement
 Organizational Commitment
Job Satisfaction
When we are talking about job-related attitudes we are talking about them within the
literature on organizational behaviour.
Job satisfaction means a person’s positive emotions about his job. He has a positive feeling
about his job. This means

the person is satisfied with the facilities his job provides such as salary, incentives, bonuses,
and other benefits.

This is the state in which an individual says to you, I really like my job, which means he is
expressing a positive attitude toward his job.

Satisfied employees tend to have a positive personality about the organization, they feel

motivated, feel happy, and positively contribute. And, employees with negative attitudes or
low levels of job satisfaction feel stressed and their contribution is not sufficient for
organizational health.
In addition, when employees’ expectations meet what they expect from the job and the
rewards the job provides, job satisfaction (positive attitude) levels up and vice versa.

Job Involvement
Job involvement refers to how closely an individual is linked with his or her job, how active
he or she engages in it, and understanding how essential his or her performance is to one’s
self-worth. It means how strongly psychologically a person engages with his job.

The higher the job involvement, the higher the productivity in the organization. Here,
employees feel the job they have really a value that enhances their self-worth. Employees are
internally motivated to work, work conflicts are reduced, absenteeism is reduced, turnover is
minimized and the overall organization gets efficiency and productivity in operation.

When employees are strongly involved in their job they care and love the job they do. A
manager should make effort to create a working environment that increases job satisfaction
and involvement and helps to achieve organizational commitment later.

Organizational Commitment
Commitment is about giving a hundred percent. Organizational commitment means a high
level of loyalty of employees towards their organization. Here, a person identifies with a
specific organization’s aims and aspires to remain a member of that organization.
This is the last job-related attitude that reflects the individual strong attachment to the
organization. Highly loyal and satisfied employees desire to get a membership in the
organization.

Employees’ commitment is highly beneficial for the organization as employees are self-
motivated, they care for the organization, they contribute their best, almost no turnover,
absenteeism, and they are heartily proud of the organization.

There are mainly three types of organizational commitment.

 Affective Commitment – This means an employee is emotionally attached to
the organization.
 Continuance Commitment – This commitment is related to reasons (mainly
economic reasons) an employee wants to stay the reason maybe salary,
prestige, name, or other benefits he/she gets.
 Normative Commitment – It is also related to reasons to remain with the
organization but here employees feel obliged, and a sense of morality is there.
Such as the organization has trained them, made them skilled, and adaptable to
change they should return to the organization.