UNIT II INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR PART I

LEARNING, ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION

ATTITUDE
An

attitude is a fairly stable evaluative tendency to respond consistently to some specific object, situation, person, or category of people. Attitudes are tendencies to respond to the target of the attitude. Thus, attitudes often influence our behaviour toward some object, situation, person, or group.

Example: o I like Subhash Ghais movies. o Lady Gaga is a very nice performer.

Belief + Value = Attitude

Behaviour

Most attempts at attitude change are initiated by a communicator who tries to use persuasion of some form to modify the beliefs or values of an audience that supports a currently held attitude. Persuasion that is designed to modify or emphasize certain values is emotionally oriented, whereas persuasion designed to modify or emphasize certain beliefs is rationally oriented.

 Attitudes

are complex Attitudes represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event Attitudes are judgments Attitudes tend to persist unless something is done to change them

KNOWN TO OTHERS

BEHAVIOR
SEA LEVEL

UNKNOWN TO OTHERS

VALUES STANDARDS JUDGMENTS

ATTITUDE
MOTIVES ETHICS - BELIEFS

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude

Affective Cognitive

The opinion or belief segment of an attitude

Behavioral

Attitude

An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something

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COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
Cognitive Component The description of, beliefs in the way things are. It consists of belief, ideas, values and other information that an individual may possess or has faith in for eg. My pay is low; We should work hard Affective Component The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude Related to persons feelings about another person, which may be positive, negative or neutral. for eg. I am angry over how little I am paid I do not like Ravi because he is not hard working

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
Behavioral Component An intention to behave in a certain way towards someone or something. Related to impact of various situations or objects that lead to individuals behaviour based on cognitive and affective components for eg. I am going to look for another job that pays better ; I would like to disassociate myself with Ravi and therefore I would avoid him.
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE THREE COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Cognitive Dissonance Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1957), is concerned with the relationships among cognitions A cognition, for the purpose of this theory, may be thought of as a piece of knowledge. The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, a value and so on. For example, the knowledge that you like the color red is a cognition Peoples attitudes or beliefs can be consonant (in line), dissonant (at odds), or not related to each other Two cognitions are said to be dissonant if one cognition follows from the opposite of another

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes 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 of the discrepancies Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:

Importance of elements creating that dissonance Degree of individual influence over the elements causing dissonance Rewards involved in dissonance

Measuring the A-B Relationship

Recent

research indicates that the attitudes (A) significantly predict behaviors (B) when moderating variables are taken into account.

Attitudes

Predict

Behavior

Moderating Variables

MODERATING VARIABLES

The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior relationship are:

Importance of the attitude: The important attitudes are the ones that reflect fundamental values, self-interest or identification with groups or individuals that a person values

Important attitudes tend to show a positive relationship with behaviour

Correspondence to behavior: The more closely the attitude and the behavior are matched, the stronger the relationship

Accessibility: Attitudes that we remember easily are more likely to predict our behavior Existence of social pressures: Discrepancies between attitudes and behavior are more likely to occur when social pressures to behave in a certain way hold exceptional power Personal and direct experience of the attitude

CHANGING ATTITUDES

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 Using the co-opting approach By using Role-model By improving working conditions

Methods to overcome barriers and change attitudes:

1.OFFERING NEW INFORMATION

When new information his provided to a person it may help him/her to change his/her beliefs and eventually change attitude. Very often lack of insufficient information may be the cause of negative attitude.

2.BY USING FEAR

By using right measure of fear, fear can also force a person to change his attitude. Ex. If late coming three times is considered a day leave, then the worker may change his attitude and avoid late comings in the future.

Methods to overcome barriers and change attitudes: 3. BY RESOLVING DISCREPANCIES Attitudes can be changed by resolving discrepancies between attitudes and behaviour. Ex. A fresh graduate may select one job of 3 to 4 jobs offered to him. But sometime later he may feel to have made a wrong choice and thus develops negative attitude towards his selected job and if he feels that it was only a temporary feeling then he may have negative attitude towards other jobs offered to him.

Methods to overcome barriers and change attitudes: 5.BY USING CO-OPTING APPROACH Co-opting means to try to change the attitude of an individual by making persons who complain to become personally involved in changing the situation o0r improving things. Ex. A person complains about problems in Accounts department. So his boss assigns that person some specific jobs in the Accounts department so that the person can see for himself /herself how hard the department works.

Methods to overcome barriers and change attitudes: 5.BY USING CO-OPTING APPROACH Co-opting means to try to change the attitude of an individual by making persons who complain to become personally involved in changing the situation o0r improving things. Ex. A person complains about problems in Accounts department. So his boss assigns that person some specific jobs in the Accounts department so that the person can see for himself /herself how hard the department works.

MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES

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

Self-Perception Theory

MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES

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

MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES

Organizational

Commitment: Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, while wishing to maintain membership in the organization. Three dimensions:
Commitment An emotional attachment to organization and a belief in its values Continuance Commitment The perceived economic value of staying with the organisation as compared to leaving it Normative Commitment The moral or ethical obligations to stay in the organisation
Affective

MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES

Organizational
Positive

Commitment

relationship with job productivity and performance but of a modest degree Relationship between commitment and performance strongest for newer employees and considerably weaker for experienced employees Negative relationship with absenteeism and turnover

OTHER 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
The

Engagement

degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the job. Engaged employees are passionate about their work and company.

JOB SATISFACTION
Job satisfaction is defined as "the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs"

WHAT CAUSES JOB SATISFACTION ?

Work Itself the strongest correlation with overall satisfaction Social Component there is a strong correlation with how people view the social context of their work Pay not correlated after individual reaches a level of comfortable living Advancement Supervision Coworkers Enjoying the work itself is almost always the facet most strongly correlated with high levels of job satisfaction
The

OUTCOMES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Job

Performance

Satisfied

workers are more productive AND more productive workers are more satisfied! The causality may run both ways.
Organizational
Satisfaction

Citizenship Behaviors

influences OCB through perceptions of

fairness.
Customer Satisfaction
Satisfied

frontline employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

employees are moderately less likely to miss

Absenteeism
Satisfied

work.

OUTCOMES OF JOB SATISFACTION

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.

MEASURING JOB SATISFACTION

Single
Only

Global Rating Method

a few general questions Remarkably accurate

Summation
Identifies

Score Method

key elements in the job and asks for specific feeling about them

How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs? Job satisfaction declined to 50.7% in 2000 Decline attributed to:

Pressures to increase productivity

Less control over work

CONSEQUENCES OF JOB DISSATISFACTION

Destructive to Constructive

Passive to Active

Exit
Neglect

Voice
Loyalty

CONSEQUENCES OF JOB DISSATISFACTION

JOB SATISFACTION AND OCB Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) Satisfied employees who feel fairly treated by and are trusting of the organization are more willing to engage in behaviors that go beyond the normal expectations of their job. OCB Discretionary behaviors that contribute to organizational effectiveness but are not part of employees formal job description

LESSONS FOR MANAGERS Employee attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior Satisfied and committed employees exhibit 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

CASE STUDY
Hemlatha as an entrepreneur, wants to find out how she can make her employees work harder. Right after completing her graduation she had taken this job. Her father passed away suddenly due to an attack and she was left with limited resources to take her fathers business. She changed the philosophy of the organisation. She wanted her employees to work on their own to come out with innovative ideas in solving their problems. On the other hand, the employees developed an attitude towards Hemlatha being very rude in her approach towards them.

CASE STUDY..contd
There was lot of commotion. Her instruction to the supervisors to increase the production went in vain. Though the employees were paid well, their absenteeism increased. Finally Hemlatha called on her employees in desperation. She announced that those employees who are failing to give the expected productivity might have to undergo a cut in their salary. 1. If you were the entrepreneur, what would you do in this situation ? 2. Suggest a possible solution in this case. 3. Explain the different attitudes you find in the case.