1. 1
Organizational Behavior
ATTITUDES &
VALUES

2. Defining Attitudes
Organizational Behavior
 Attitude is a hypothetical construct
 Cannot be directly observed – inferred from what
people say and do
 Attitude objects are concrete, abstract, about people,
groups of people and inanimate objects
 Behaviour towards objects is dependent upon attitude
towards objects
 Attitudes tend to persist unless something is done to
change them
 Attitudes can fall anywhere along a continuum from
very favourable to very unfavourable.
 Attitudes are directed towards some object about which
a person has feelings or affect and beliefs
2

3. HOW MUCH DO YOU SEE OF AN ICEBERG?
Organizational Behavior
3

4. Organizational Behavior
ONLY 10% OF
ANY ICEBERG
IS VISIBLE.
THE
REMAINING
90% IS BELOW
SEA LEVEL.
4

5. BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
KNOWN
TO OTHERS
SEA LEVEL
UNKNOWN
TO OTHERS
VALUES – STANDARDS – JUDGMENTS
ATTITUDE
MOTIVES – ETHICS - BELIEFS
5

6. The opinion or
belief segment of
an attitude
Organizational Behavior
Evaluative statements or
judgments concerning objects,
people, or events.
Three components of an attitude:
The emotional
or feeling
segment of an
attitude
An intention to
behave in a certain
6
way toward someone
or something

7. THREE COMPONENTS OF
ATTITUDES


Organizational Behavior

Cognitive Component – The opinion
or belief segment of an attitude.
Affective Component – The
emotional or feeling segment of an
attitude.
Behavioral Component – An
intention to behave in a certain way
towards someone or something.
7

8. Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance
 Importance of elements
 Degree of individual influence
 Rewards involved in dissonance
8
Organizational Behavior
 Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between
two or more attitudes or between behavior and
attitudes
 People’s attitudes or beliefs can be consonant (in line),
dissonant (at odds), or not related to each other
 If dissonant, we experience psychological discomfort
 Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or
dissonance, to reach stability and consistency
 Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes,
modifying the behaviors, or through rationalization
 Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:

9. MODERATING VARIABLES

Organizational Behavior

The most powerful moderators of the attitudebehavior relationship are:
 Importance of the attitude
Correspondence to behavior
 Accessibility
 Existence of social pressures
 Personal and direct experience of the
attitude.
9

10. CHANGING ATTITUDES

2.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Organizational Behavior
1.
Barriers to changing attitudes:
Prior commitment
Insufficient information
Methods to overcome barriers and change
attitudes:
Providing new information
Use of fear
Resolving Discrepancies
Influence of friends and peers
The co-opting approach
10

11. WHAT ARE THE MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES?


Organizational Behavior

Job Satisfaction
 A positive feeling about the job resulting from an
evaluation of its characteristics
Job Involvement
 Degree of psychological identification with the
job where perceived performance is important to
self-worth
Psychological Empowerment
 Belief in the degree of influence over the job,
competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy
11

12. ANOTHER MAJOR JOB ATTITUDE

Organizational Behavior
Organizational Commitment
 Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals, while wishing to maintain membership in
the organization.
 Three dimensions:
 Affective – emotional attachment to
organization
 Continuance Commitment – economic value of
staying
 Normative - moral or ethical obligations
 Has some relation to performance, especially for
new employees.
 Less important now than in past – now perhaps
more of occupational commitment, loyalty to
12
profession rather than a given employer.

13. AND YET MORE MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES

Perceived Organizational Support (POS)

Degree to which employees believe the organization values
their contribution and cares about their well-being.

Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in
decision-making, and supervisors are seen as supportive.

High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance.
Employee Engagement

The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the job.

Engaged employees are passionate about their work and
company.
Organizational Behavior

…
13

14. OUTCOMES OF JOB SATISFACTION



Organizational Behavior

Job Performance
 Satisfied workers are more productive AND
more productive workers are more satisfied!
 The causality may run both ways.
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
 Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions
of fairness.
Customer Satisfaction
 Satisfied frontline employees increase customer
satisfaction and loyalty.
Absenteeism
 Satisfied employees are moderately less likely14
to
miss work.

15. MORE OUTCOMES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Organizational Behavior

Turnover
 Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
 Many moderating variables in this relationship.
 Economic environment and tenure
 Organizational actions taken to retain high
performers and to weed out lower performers
Workplace Deviance
 Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize,
abuse substances, steal, be tardy, and withdraw.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of the impact
of job satisfaction on the bottom line, most
managers are either unconcerned about or
overestimate worker satisfaction.
15

16. VALUES
Organizational Behavior
Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or endstate of conduct or end-state of existence is personally
or socially preferable to an opposite or converse
mode of conduct or end-state of existence.
 Attributes of Values:
 Content Attribute – that the mode of conduct or endstate is important
 Intensity Attribute – just how important that content is.
 Value System
 A person’s values rank ordered by intensity
16
 Tends to be relatively constant and consistent

17. IMPORTANCE OF VALUES
Provide understanding of the attitudes, motivation,
and behaviors

Influence our perception of the world around us

Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”

Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are preferred
over others
Organizational Behavior

17

18. CLASSIFYING VALUES –
ROKEACH VALUE SURVEY


Organizational Behavior

Terminal Values
 Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a
person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime
Instrumental Values
 Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving
one’s terminal values
People in same occupations or categories tend to hold
similar values
 But values vary between groups
 Value differences make it difficult for groups to negotiate
18
and may create conflict

19. VALUES IN THE ROKEACH SURVEY
Organizational Behavior
19

20. VALUES






Power Distance
Individualism vs. Collectivism
Masculinity vs. Femininity
Uncertainty Avoidance
Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation
Organizational Behavior

Values differ across cultures.
Hofstede’s Framework for assessing
culture – five value dimensions:
20

21. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK:
POWER DISTANCE

Organizational Behavior
The extent to which a society accepts that power in
institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
 Low distance
 Relatively equal power between those with
status/wealth and those without status/wealth
 High distance
 Extremely unequal power distribution between those
with status/wealth and those without status/wealth
21

22. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK:
INDIVIDUALISM

Organizational Behavior

Individualism
 The degree to which people prefer to act as
individuals rather than a member of groups
Collectivism
 A tight social framework in which people expect
others in groups of which they are a part to look
after them and protect them
22

23. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK:
MASCULINITY

Organizational Behavior

Masculinity
 The extent to which the society values work roles
of achievement, power, and control, and where
assertiveness and materialism are also valued
Femininity
 The extent to which there is little differentiation
between roles for men and women
23

24. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK:
UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE
The extent to which a society feels threatened by
uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to
avoid them
 High Uncertainty Avoidance:
Society does not like ambiguous situations and tries to avoid
them.
 Low Uncertainty Avoidance:
Society does not mind ambiguous situations and embraces
them.

Organizational Behavior
24

25. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK:
TIME ORIENTATION

Organizational Behavior

Long-term Orientation
 A national culture attribute that emphasizes the
future, thrift, and persistence
Short-term Orientation
 A national culture attribute that emphasizes the
present and the here and now
25

26. HOFSTEDE’S FRAMEWORK: AN
ASSESSMENT




Organizational Behavior

There are regional differences within countries
The original data is old and based on only one
company
Hofstede had to make many judgment calls while
doing the research
Some results don’t match what is believed to be true
about given countries
Despite these problems it remains a very popular
framework
26