Organizational Behavior Study Guide: Values, Attitudes, Job Satisfaction & Behavior

Personal Values and Attitudes

Personal values are defined as abstract ideals or deeply held beliefs that guide and influence the choices individuals make. They represent global beliefs that function as broad, enduring principles influencing behavior consistently across various situations. Values are established early in life, primarily influenced by parental values and childhood experiences.

Attitudes, in contrast, are beliefs that are specific to particular people, objects, or situations. While values reflect general, overarching ideals, attitudes focus directly on specific targets.

Work environments that successfully align with employees' personal values lead to direct organizational benefits, specifically increasing employee motivation and fostering positive workplace attitudes.

Theory of Planned Behavior

The Theory of Planned Behavior, developed by Icek Ajzen, provides a structural framework demonstrating that intentions are the central link connecting attitudes to planned behavior.

• Intention: Represented as a person's planned course of action. Intention serves as the single strongest direct predictor of behavior.

• Modifying Behavior: Within Ajzen's framework, individual behavior is most effectively altered by modifying intentions.

Intentions are driven by three core motives:

1. Attitude toward the behavior: The degree to which a person evaluates a specific behavior positively or negatively.

2. Subjective norm: The perceived social pressure from others either to perform or not to perform the behavior.

3. Perceived behavioral control: An individual's belief concerning how easy or difficult executing the specific behavior will be.

Workplace Attitudes and Underlying Processes

Workplace attitudes refer to specific evaluative beliefs and feelings regarding the work environment. Understanding these attitudes provides insights into workplace health, motivation, and retention. Workplace attitude surveys are deployed to reveal levels of employee engagement, enhance understanding of job satisfaction, and pinpoint specific organizational factors associated with employee turnover and quitting.

Workplace attitudes originate from the complex interaction of three distinct levels of Organizational Behavior (OB) processes:

• Individual Processes: Personal factors affecting attitudes, including personality traits, values, emotions, and individual perceptions.

• Group Processes: Team-level dynamics influencing attitudes, including leadership styles, group dynamics, and communication channels.

• Organizational Processes: Systemic organizational attributes, including organizational culture, structural design, policies, and operational practices.

Key Workplace Attitudes and Psychological Contracts

There are four primary workplace attitudes essential to organizational performance:

• Job Satisfaction: The extent to which an individual likes their job. It reflects an affective or emotional response toward various distinct facets of the job.

• Employee Engagement: The manifestation of energy, involvement, enthusiasm, and a willingness to give one's all at work. A primary operational indicator of engagement is a heightened sense of urgency to complete work.

• Organizational Commitment: The extent to which an employee identifies with an organization and commits dedicated effort toward achieving its overarching goals.

• Perceived Organizational Support (POS): An employee's belief that the organization actively values their contributions and genuinely cares about their personal well-being.

The Psychological Contract

A psychological contract represents an individual's perception of the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange between themselves and their employer. It encompasses the informal, unwritten expectations and obligations existing between employee and employer.

Methods to Increase Organizational Commitment

• Value Alignment: Actively recruit and hire individuals whose personal values align closely with the organization's core values.

• Fairness and Trust: Treat employees with consistent fairness and proactively cultivate organizational trust.

• Contract Integrity: Avoid breaching psychological contracts.

• Corporate Implementation Examples:

  • Cisco: Enhances commitment through flextime arrangements, a explicit company manifesto outlining expectations, and dedicated corporate support for employee volunteer work.

  • Hilton: Increases organizational commitment by having corporate executives work directly alongside frontline employees.

Perceived Organizational Support (POS)

Perceived Organizational Support (POS) plays a critical role in shaping employee workplace outcomes. High levels of POS deliver measurable operational benefits, including higher job satisfaction, increased employee engagement, greater organizational citizenship behavior, and stronger organizational commitment.

To increase POS within an organization, management should focus on four actionable strategies:

1. Eliminate or minimize internal political behavior.

2. Provide robust, reliable job security.

3. Actively limit and mitigate work-environment stressors.

4. Ensure consistent and fair treatment across all staff.

Models and Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

Five Theoretical Models of Job Satisfaction

• Need Fulfillment: Job satisfaction is driven by the organization's ability to understand and meet fundamental employee needs.

• Met Expectations: Satisfaction depends on meeting the specific expectations employees hold regarding what they will receive from their jobs.

• Value Attainment: Satisfaction is maximized by structuring the job and its underlying reward systems to match core employee values.

• Equity: Satisfaction is governed by monitoring and maintaining employee perceptions of fairness in inputs and outcomes relative to others.

• Disposition: Satisfaction is influenced by personal traits; organizations maximize this by hiring employees who possess an inherently positive disposition.

Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction directly influences both attitudinal and behavioral workplace outcomes:

• Attitudinal Outcomes:

  • Motivation

  • Job involvement

  • Perceived stress

  • Withdrawal cognitions

• Positive Behavioral Outcomes:

  • Job performance

  • Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

Directional Relationships of Job Satisfaction

• Positive Relationships: Job satisfaction shares a strong positive association with job performance and OCB. Job satisfaction and performance are moderately related, directly and indirectly influencing each other over time. Motivation and job involvement represent key positive outcomes.

• Negative Relationships: Higher job satisfaction is directly associated with lower counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and significantly lower employee turnover.

OCB and Counterproductive Work Behavior

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) encompasses voluntary, prosocial, extra-role behaviors that go significantly beyond minimum formal job requirements to directly assist the organization and its members.

Unlike standard job specifications, OCBs explicitly surpass minimum acceptable performance standards.

Concrete Examples of OCB:

• Arriving at work early.

• Volunteering to train and onboard new hires.

• Submitting constructive suggestions for workplace improvement.

• Respecting both the explicit letter and the underlying spirit of organizational rules.

• Demonstrating genuine personal interest in the work and achievements of colleagues.

Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)

Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) consists of intentional actions that actively harm the organization or its individual members. CWBs directly compromise organizational productivity, mutual trust, safety, and workplace morale.

Concrete Examples of CWB:

• Theft of company assets.

• Workplace bullying.

• Sabotage and destruction of firm property.

• Drug and alcohol abuse while on duty.

• Harmful workplace gossiping.

• Repeated, unexcused lateness.

• Wasting productive work time on personal social media or online browsing.

• Engaging in other explicitly harmful work behaviors.

Core Reference Guide and Summary

Key Definitions Summary

Essential Relationships & Core Takeaways

• Belief Hierarchy: Values represent general global principles, whereas attitudes target specific individuals, objects, or contexts.

• Behavioral Mechanics: Attitudes influence planned behavior through intentions, which are formed by attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

• Value Alignment: Matching personal and organizational values elevates motivation, positive attitudes, and long-term commitment.

• Process Layers: Workplace attitudes are formed at individual, group, and organizational levels.

• POS Impact: High POS boosts job satisfaction, engagement, OCB, and commitment.

• Satisfaction Dynamics: High job satisfaction increases performance and OCB while reducing turnover and CWB.

• Behavioral Contrast: OCB is extra-role and constructive; CWB is intentional and destructive.