Attitude & Values

Attitude

A psychological tendency expressed by evaluating an entity with some

degree of favour or disfavour
 ABC of attitude

Affective- the emotional or feeling segment associated with that belief

“I feel angry that I am not being treated fairly.”

Behavioral- the intention to behave in a certain way

“I am going to quit this job soon as I can”

Cognitive- an opinion or belief

“I just found out I am paid 20% less than my coworkers.”

• Relation between Attitudes, Beliefs and Values

 • Reasonably stable

• Directed toward some person, object or idea

• Relates to one’s behavior toward that object or

person

• People tend to behave in ways that are consistent

with their feelings
Some facts about
ATTITUDE….
• Behaviors are also influenced by motivational
forces and situational factors

• People interpret our attitudes by our behavior

• Employers place great emphasis on attitude

• Employee attitudes affect customer attitudes

• Attitudes are primarily developed through

experiences
 • Job Satisfaction- A collection of positive and/or
negative feelings that an individual holds towards his
or her job.
• Job Involvement- the degree to which a person
identifies psychologically with his/her work,
participates actively in it, and considers performance
important to self-worth
Major job attitudes
• Organizational Commitment- The extent to which an
employee feels a sense of allegiance to his/her
employer
– Affective commitment
– Continuance commitment
– Normative commitment
 Organizational commitment is an
attitude that reflects the strength
of the linkage between an
employee and an organization

Organizational
Commitment
There are three different types of
organizational commitment:

Affective Continuance Normative

commitment commitment commitment
 • Commitment based on a person’s
identification and involvement with an
organization

• People with high affective commitment

stay with an organization because they
want to
Affective
Commitment – I feel like part of the family at this
company
– Working here has a great deal of
personal meaning
– I would be very happy to spend the
rest of my career here
 • Commitment based on the costs that
would be incurred in leaving an
organization

Continuance
• People with high continuance
Commitment
commitment stay with an organization
because they have to

• Pay, pensions, benefits, etc.

 • Commitment based on ideology or a
feeling of obligation to an organization

• People with high normative commitment

stay with an organization because they
Normative think they should do so
Commitment
– I owe a great deal to my company
– I would feel guilty if I quit this firm
– I feel a sense of obligation to this firm
 • The Work Itself – the strongest
correlation with overall satisfaction

• Pay – not correlated after individual

reaches a level of comfortable living
What Causes Job
Satisfaction? • Advancement

• Supervision

• Coworkers
Measuring job satisfaction
 The Consequences of Dissatisfaction

Destructive to Constructive
Passive to Active
 • Better job and organizational performance

• Better organizational citizenship behaviours

The benefits of
• Greater levels of customer satisfaction
satisfaction
• Generally lower absenteeism and turnover

• Decreased instances of workplace deviance

 • Prior commitments
Barriers to • Insufficient information
changing attitude

Ways to overcome these barriers

• Providing new information
• Fear
• Resolving discrepancies
• Influence of friends and peers
 Employee attitudes give warnings of potential
problems and influence behavior

• Knowing attitudes helps predict behavior

Managerial
• Satisfied and committed employees exhibit
Implication behaviors that increase organizational
outcomes

• Managers must measure job attitudes in

order to improve them

• Most important elements a manager can

focus on are the intrinsic parts of the job:
making the work challenging and interesting

• High pay is not enough to create satisfaction

 With a bad attitude you cannot
The choice is yours: have a positive day ….

With a positive attitude you

cannot have a bad day ….
VALUES
 • Represent interpretations of “right” and
“wrong.”

• Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are

preferred over others

What is it all about ? • Values have to do with what we consider good

and bad

• Values are motivational and very general

• Learned early, continue to develop

• Drive choices and behavior

• Differ based on culture and environment

 Religious - obtains strength from
religious beliefs
Theoretical -holds truth, rationality

Political -values power

Types of
Values Economic -values usefulness and
practicality
Aesthetic -values beauty, harmony, and
form
Social -values human interactions, is
kind, sympathetic, and unselfish
 • Members of different occupational groups
hold different values
• Professors value equal opportunity more
than average person
• Salespeople rank social values lower
(peace, equality)
Occupational
Differences in • Differences can cause conflict between
Values organizations and within organizations

• A good “fit” between the values of

employees and their supervisors and
organization enhances job attitudes and
behaviours

• Explicit and implicit values

 Starbucks-Fair trade

Apple- Passion

Examples Google- Do no evil

Body Shop- Not selling products

which have been tested on animals
 Rokeach Value Survey

• Instrumental values
• Terminal values
• Refers to desirable end-states refers to preferable modes of
of existence behavior, or means of
achieving the terminal values
Goals that a person would like
to achieve during his or her
lifetime
 • A comfortable life (a prosperous life)
• An exciting life (stimulating, active life)
• A sense of accomplishment (lasting
contribution)
• A world of peace (free of war and
conflict)
Examples of • A world of beauty (beauty of nature and
Terminal Values the arts)
• Equality (brotherhood, equal
opportunity for all)
• Family security (taking care of loved
ones)
• Freedom (independence, free choice)
• Happiness (contentedness)
 Ambitious (hard working, aspiring)

Broad-minded (open-minded)

Capable (competent, efficient)

Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)

Examples of
Instrumental Clean (neat, tidy)
Values Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)

Forgiving (willing to pardon others)

Helpful (working for the welfare of others)

Honest (sincere, truthful)

 • Values differ across cultures

• Two frameworks for assessing

Global Implications culture:
Hofstede
GLOBE
 • Geert Hofstede questioned over
116,000 IBM employees in 40 countries
about work-related values

• Six basic dimensions along which work-

Values across related values differed across cultures:
Cultures: Hofstede’s – Power distance
Study – Uncertainty avoidance
– Masculinity/femininity
– Individualism/collectivism
– Long-term or short-term orientation
– Indulgence/Restraint
 • The extent to which an unequal distribution of
power is accepted by society members

• In small power distance cultures, inequality is

minimized, superiors are accessible, and power
differences are downplayed

Power Distance
• In large power distance cultures, inequality is
accepted as natural, superiors are inaccessible,
and power differences are highlighted.

• Germany has a 35 on the cultural scale of

Hofstede’s analysis, Arab countries is very high
(80) and Austria it is very low (11), India (77)
 • The extent to which people are uncomfortable
with uncertain and ambiguous situations

• Strong uncertainty avoidance cultures stress

rules and regulations, hard work, conformity, and
security
Uncertainty Avoidance
• Cultures with weak uncertainty avoidance are
less concerned with rules, conformity, and
security; risk taking is valued

• Germany there is a reasonable high uncertainty

avoidance (65) compared to countries as
Singapore (8) and Denmark (23), India (40)
 • Masculine cultures clearly differentiate
gender roles, support the dominance of men,
Masculinity/Femininity and stress economic performance

• Feminine cultures accept fluid gender roles,

stress sexual equality, and quality of life

• India going under a dramatic change in recent

past , moving towards Gender equality, but
still a long way to go…..
• India (56)
 • Individualistic societies stress
independence, individual initiative, and
Individualism/Collectivism privacy.
• Collective cultures favour
interdependence and loyalty to family
or clan.

What do you feel under which category do

we Indians fall in general?????
India (48)
 • Cultures with a long-term orientation stress
persistence, perseverance, thrift, and close
attention to status differences

• Cultures with a short-term orientation stress

personal steadiness and stability, face-saving, and
social niceties
Long term/ short
term Orientation
• China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea
tend to be characterized by a long-term
orientation

• Canada and the United States are more short-term

oriented.
• India (51)
 • The extent to which people try to
control their desires and impulses

• Relatively weak control is control is

called indulgence and relatively strong
control is called restraint

Indulgence/Restraint
• Restrained societies do not put much
emphasis on leisure time and control
the gratification of their desires

• India’s score on this is 26. It is a culture

of restraint
• http://geert-hofstede.com/india.html
 GLOBE* Framework for Assessing Cultures

Ongoing study with nine factors:

• Assertiveness
• Future orientation
• Gender differentiation
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Power distance
• Individualism/ collectivism
• In-group collectivism
• Performance orientation
• Humane orientation

*Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness

(1993, 825 organizations in 62 countries, on leadership and national
culture)