Values, attitudes and job satisfaction

by
Mr. Tšo Sechaba
WELCOME
TO
Individual values, attitudes and job
satisfaction session
 Objectives
1. Contrast terminal and instrumental values.
2. List the dominant values in today’s workforce.
3. Identify the five value dimensions of national culture.
4. Contrast the three components of an attitude.
5. Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
6. Identify the role consistency plays in attitudes.
7. State the relationship between job satisfaction and behavior.
8. Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction.
 Introduction
• This chapter looks at the attitudes, their link to
behaviour and factors that shape employees’
satisfaction with their job.
• But first, we address the topic of values, how they have
changed from generation to generation.
• What these changes mean for managing people of
different ages.
 Values
• Is capital punishment right or wrong?
• If a person likes power, is that good or bad?
• The answers to these question are value-laden.
• Some might argue, for example, that capital punishment is
right because it is an appropriate retribution for crimes like
murder and treason.
• However, others might argue, just as strongly, that no
government has the right to take anyone’s life.
 Values cont.
• Values
– Represent basic convictions that specific mode 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
– They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s
ideas as to what is right, good or desirable.
– Value system is a hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s
values in terms of their intensity.
– They intensity attribute specifies how important it is.
 Values cont.
• Importance of values
– Values are important to the study of OB because they lay the
foundation for the understanding of attitudes and motivation and
because they influence our perceptions.
– Individuals enter an organization with preconceived notions of what
“ought” and what “ought not” to be.
– Values cloud objectivity and rationality.
– Values generally influence attitudes and behaviour.
 Values cont.
• E.g suppose that you join an organization with the view that allocating
pay on basis of performance is right, while allocating pay on the basis of
seniority is wrong.
• How are you going to react if you find that the organization you have
just joined rewards seniority and not performance?
– You will be disappointed
– This can lead to job dissatisfaction and the decision not to exert a high level
of effort since “it’s probably not going to lead to more money, anyway”.
• Would your attitudes and behaviour be different if your values aligned
with the organization’s policies? Most likely.
 Types of values
• Terminal values
– Refers to desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person
would like to achieve during his or her lifetime.
• Instrumental values
– Refers to preferable modes of behaviour or means of achieving one’s
terminal values.
Values in the Rokeach Survey
Mean Value Rankings of Executives, Union Members, and Activists
Dominant Work Values in Today’s Workforce
 Values, Loyalty, and Ethical Behavior
• The has been a debate that business ethics began to decline in the late 1970s.
– Through the mid 1970s the managerial ranks were dominated by Veterans, who
loyalties were to their employers.
• When faced with ethical dilemmas, their decisions were made in terms of what was
best for their organization.
– Beginning in the mid-to-late 1970s, Boomers began to rise to top management
positions, their loyalty is their careers.
• Their focus is inward and their primary concern is what looking out for “number
one”, such self-centred values would be consistent with a decline in ethical
standards.
– The potential good news in this analysis is that Xers are moving into senior position,
since their loyalty is to relationships, they are more likely to consider the ethical
implications of their actions on others around them.
 Values across cultures
• Managers have to become capable of working with people
from different cultures.
• Because values differ across cultures, an understanding of
these differences should be helpful in explaining and predicting
behaviour of employees from different countries.
• Greet Hofstede’s framework for assessing cultures is the most
widely referenced approaches for analysing variations among
cultures which was done in the late 1970s.
 Values across cultures cont.
• Hofstede’s framework for assessing cultures
– He found that managers and employees vary on five value dimensions of
national culture. They are listed and defined as follows;
1. Power distance: the degree to which people in a country accept that
power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
Ranges from relatively equal (low power distance) to extremely unequal
(high power distance)
2. Individualism vs collectivism: individualism is the degree to which
people in a country prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of
groups.
Collectivism is the equivalent of low individualism.
 Values across cultures cont.
3. Achievement vs nurturing: achievement is the degree to which values
such assertiveness, the acquisition of money and material goods and
competition prevail. Nurturing is the degree to which people value
relationships and show sensitivity and concern for welfare of others.
4. Uncertainty avoidance the degree to which people in a country prefer
structured over unstructured situations.
5. Long-term vs short-term orientation people in cultures with long-
term orientations look to the future and value thrift and persistence. A
short-term orientation values the past and present and emphasizes
respect for tradition and fulfilling social obligations.
 Attitudes
• Attitudes
– Are evaluative statements – either favourable or unfavourable –
concerning objects, people or events.
– They reflect how one feels about something.
– E.g when I say “I like my job” I am expressing my attitude about
work.
– Attitudes are not the same as values but the two are interrelated.
– This can be done by looking at the three components of attitude:
cognition, affect and behaviour
 Attitudes cont.
• Cognitive component of an attitude the opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
– E.g the belief that “discrimination is wrong” is a value statement, such opinion is the
cognitive component of an attitude.
• Affective component of an attitude the emotional or feeling segment of an
attitude.
– E.g “I don’t like John because he discriminates against minorities” is a feeling or
emotional statement.
• Behavioural component of an attitude an intention to behave in a certain way
toward someone or something.
– E.g I might choose to avoid John because of my feeling about him.
• Attitudes are important because they affect job behaviour.
 Types of attitudes
• A person can have thousands of attitudes, but OB only focuses
attention on a very limited number of work-related attitudes.
• These work-related attitudes tap positive or negative
evaluations that employees hold about aspects of their work
environment.
• Only three attitudes will be considered;
1. Job satisfaction
2. Job involvement
3. Organizational commitment.
 Types of attitudes cont.
1. Job satisfaction
– Refers to a collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job. E.g a
person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive feelings about the job,
while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds a negative feelings about
the job.
2. Job involvement
– The degree to which a person identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it
and considers his or her performance important to self-worth.
– E.g employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really
care about the kind of work they do.
– A high level of job involvement is positively related to organizational citizenship and
job performance, also related to fewer absences and lower resignations rates.
 Types of attitudes cont.
3. Organizational commitment (OC)
– The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular
organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the
organization.
– E.g OC means identifying with one’s employing organization.
– An employee may be dissatisfied with his or her particular job and
consider temporary condition, yet not be dissatisfied with the
organization as a whole.
– But when dissatisfaction spreads to the organization itself,
individuals are more likely to consider resigning.
 Cognitive dissonance theory
• Cognitive dissonance theory
– Refers to any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between
behaviour and attitudes.
– E.g you tell a children to wash their teeth everyday but you do not do that.
• Self-perception theory
– Attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has
already occurred.
– E.g when asked about an attitude toward some object, individuals often
recall their behaviour relevant to that object and then infer their attitude
from their past behaviour.
 Measuring the A-B Relationship
• Recent research indicates that the attitudes (A) significantly predict
behaviors (B) when moderating variables are taken into account.
– When your attitudes have been established for a while and are well
defined, those attitudes are likely to guide your behaviour.
• Moderating Variables
• Importance of the attitude
• Specificity of the attitude
• Accessibility of the attitude
• Social pressures on the individual
• Direct experience with the attitude
The Effect of Job Satisfaction on Employee Performance
• Satisfaction and Productivity
– Satisfied workers aren’t necessarily more productive.
– Worker productivity is higher in organizations with more satisfied
workers.
• Satisfaction and Absenteeism
– Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable absences.
• Satisfaction and Turnover
– Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
– Organizations take actions to cultivate high performers and to weed
out lower performers.
 How Employees Can Express Dissatisfaction
• Exit
– Dissatisfaction expressed through behaviour directed toward leaving the
organization.
• Voice
– Dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to
improve conditions.
• Loyalty
– Dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to improve.
• Neglect
– Dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen.
Responses to Job Dissatisfaction
 Summary and implications for managers
• Why is it import to know an individual’s values?
– Although they do not have a direct impact on behaviour, values
strongly influence a person’s attitudes.
– So knowledge of an individual’s value system can provide insight into
his or her attitudes.
– Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because
attitudes give warnings of potential problems and because they
influence behaviour.
• E.g satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover and
absenteeism.
THANK YOU

Questions?