VALUES AND ATTITUDES
VALUES
DEFINITION

concepts or beliefs that guide how we make decisions about and evaluations
of behaviours and events.

Values tend to be relatively stable and enduring.

Mostly formed during early years through socialization.
ROKEACH VALUE SURVEY

Milton Rokeach classified the values that people hold into two sets, with each
set containing 18 individual value items.

Terminal Values - these are the goals that individuals would like to achieve during
their lifetime, such as a comfortable life, or happiness.

Instrumental Values - preferable ways of behaving, such as being courageous or
helpful.
ETHICAL VALUES

Ethics is the study of moral values or principles that guide our behaviour and inform us whether
actions are right or wrong.

Kent Hodgson has identified seven general moral principles for decision making about behaviour:

Dignity of human life. The lives of people are to be respected.

Autonomy. All persons are intrinsically valuable and have the right to self-determination.

Honesty. The truth should be told to those who have a right to know it.

Loyalty. Promises, contracts, and commitments should be honoured.

Fairness. People should be treated justly.

Humaneness. Our actions ought to accomplish good, and we should avoid doing
evil.

The common good. Actions should accomplish the greatest good for the greatest
number of people.
CULTURAL VALUES

Managers have to become capable of working with people from different
cultures.

It is important to understand how values differ across cultures.

Geert Hofstede approaches for analyzing variations among cultures is widely
used.

He surveyed more than 116 000 IBM employees in 40 countries about their
work-related values.
ATTITUDES
DEFINITION

Positive or negative feelings about objects, people, or events.

Attitudes are thus judgment responses to situations. E.g. ‘I like my job/I do
not like my boss’.

In organizations, attitudes are important because they affect job behaviour.

Employees may be negatively affected by the attitudes of their co-workers or
clients.
ATTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE

Two important attitudes that affect organizational performance:
1.
Job Satisfaction
2.
Organizational commitment
JOB SATISFACTION

An individual’s general attitude toward his or her job.

High level of job satisfaction leads to positive attitude towards the job.

Job dissatisfaction leads to negative attitude towards the job.
 Factors
conducive to Job Satisfaction:
1.
Mentally challenging work - People prefer jobs that
give them opportunities to use their skills and abilities
and offer a variety of tasks, freedom, and feedback on
how well they are doing.
2.
Equitable rewards - Employees want pay systems and
promotion policies that they perceive as just,
unambiguous, and in line with their expectations.
3.
Supportive working conditions - Employees
want work environments that support
personal comfort and good job performance.
4.
Supportive colleagues - People get more
out of work than merely money or tangible
achievements
Job Satisfaction: Expression of
Dissatisfaction

Employees express dissatisfaction in various ways:

• Exit. Actively attempting to leave the organization, including
looking for a new position as well as resigning. This is a destructive
action from the point of view of the organization.

• Voice. Actively and constructively trying to improve conditions,
including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with
superiors, and some forms of union activity.
Job Satisfaction: Expression of
Dissatisfaction

• Loyalty. Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to
improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of
external criticism and trusting the organization and its management
to do the right thing.

• Neglect. Passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic
absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.
Organisational Commitment

Definition:

State in which an employee identifies with a particular organization
and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.
Organisational Commitment

three types of commitment:

• Affective commitment. An individual’s relationship to the organization:
his or her emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in
the organization.

• Normative commitment. The obligation an individual feels to staying
with the organization.

• Continuance commitment. An individual’s calculation that it is in his or
her best interest to stay with the organization based on the perceived costs
of leaving the organization.
Organisational Commitment

Affective commitment is strongly associated with positive work behaviours
such as performance, attendance, and citizenship.

Normative commitment is less strongly associated with positive work
behaviours.

However, when affective and normative commitment decline, individuals are
much more likely to quit their jobs.
Organisational Commitment