Organizational Behavior chapter 4: Attitudes and Behaviors at Work

Attitudes and Behaviors at Work

Chapter Learning Objectives

  • Identify major work attitudes affecting work behaviors.

  • List key behaviors impacting organizational performance.

  • Understand the connection between attitudes, behaviors, ethics, technology, and cross-cultural management.

Fostering Positive Job Attitudes and Professional Development: Zoom Video Communications

  • Zoom is a valuable cloud-based company.

  • The founder instilled values of customer service and employee investment.

  • Zoom considers customer and employee happiness as core to their culture and success.

Case Discussion Questions

  • Review employee reviews on websites like Glassdoor and Comparably to understand what employees like and dislike about working at Zoom.

  • Discuss the advantages and downsides of using “happiness” as part of their brand as an employer.

  • Analyze the connection between employee attitudes, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth, and how generalizable this is.

  • Consider how Zoom's IPO in 2019 might affect its corporate culture.

  • Identify which elements (e.g., happiness crews, perks) are most critical to employee happiness.

Section 4.2 Learning Objectives

  • Define “work attitudes.”

  • Describe the relationship between attitudes and behaviors.

  • Define and differentiate between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job engagement.

  • List the factors related to work attitudes.

  • Describe the consequences of work attitudes.

  • Identify ways companies can track work attitudes.

Work Attitudes

  • Understanding employee behavior requires understanding their attitudes.

  • Attitude: Opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of the environment.

  • Two key work attitudes:

    • Job satisfaction: Feelings about one's job.

    • Organizational commitment: Emotional attachment to the company.

    • Job engagement: Investment of mental, emotional, and physical energy into work.

OB Toolbox: How to Be Happier at Work

  • Cultivate a positive attitude.

  • Find a good fit with the job and company.

  • Gather accurate job/company information.

  • Develop positive work relationships.

  • Recognize that job characteristics matter more than pay for job satisfaction.

  • Proactively manage organizational life.

  • Know when it's time to leave.

What Causes Positive Work Attitudes?

  • Several aspects of the work environment matter:

    • Treatment by the organization.

    • Relationships with colleagues and managers.

    • Nature of the work performed.

  • Values may change depending on economic circumstances and the job market.

Factors Contributing to Job Attitudes

  • Personality

  • Person-environment fit

  • Job characteristics

  • Psychological contract

  • Organizational justice

  • Work relationships

  • Stress

  • Work-life balance

Personality

  • Job satisfaction is partially influenced by personality.

  • Positive affective disposition: Tendency to experience positive moods more often.

    • Leads to greater job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

  • Positive core self-evaluations are linked to more positive job attitudes.

Person-Environment Fit

  • Alignment of abilities with job demands and company values increases satisfaction and commitment.

  • Person-organization fit: Match between personality, values, goals, and organizational characteristics.

  • Person-job fit: Match between knowledge, skills, abilities, and job demands.

Job Characteristics

  • Specific job characteristics enhance satisfaction and commitment:

    • Using a variety of skills.

    • Having empowerment at work.

    • Receiving feedback on the job.

    • Performing a significant task.

Psychological Contract

  • Employees have expectations regarding responsibilities and rights.

  • Psychological contract: An unwritten understanding between employee and company.

  • Psychological contract breach: Occurs when expectations are not met.

Organizational Justice

  • Fair treatment significantly impacts job satisfaction.

  • Encompasses fairness of company policies/procedures, supervisor treatment, and rewards.

Relationships at Work

  • Relationships with coworkers/managers influence job satisfaction and commitment.

  • Includes compassion, social acceptance, respect, assistance, support, friendship, and mentoring opportunities.

Stress

  • Job stressors lead to dissatisfaction:

    • Role ambiguity

    • Role conflict

    • Organizational politics

    • Job security concerns

  • Positive stressors:

    • Time pressure

    • High degree of responsibility

Work-Life Balance

  • Employees desire balanced lives with hobbies and family time alongside work success.

  • Work-life interference causes stress and reduces job satisfaction.

Consequences of Positive Work Attitudes

  • Studies on the relationship between job satisfaction and performance vary.

    • Some show weak correlations, others higher.

  • Commitment and performance correlation is generally weaker.

  • Happy workers are more engaged.

  • Factors maintaining performance:

    • Fear of termination

    • Desire for promotion

    • Professional work ethic

Assessing Work Attitudes in the Workplace

  • Systematic methods for tracking work attitudes:

    • Attitude surveys: Allow employees to voice concerns.

    • Exit interviews: Identify areas for improvement.

    • Sentiment analysis: Automatic identification of positive/negative sentiments in text.

Section 3.0 Learning Objectives

  • Define job performance, organizational citizenship, absenteeism, and turnover.

  • Explain factors associated with each type of work behavior.

Work Behaviors

  • Job Performance: Influenced by general mental abilities, how we are treated at work, personality, stress, and work attitudes.

  • Citizenship: Influenced by how we are treated at work, personality, positive work attitudes, and age.

  • Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Influenced by personality, negative job attitudes, and stress.

  • Absenteeism: Influenced by health problems, work/life balance issues, negative work attitudes, stress, and age.

  • Turnover: Influenced by poor performance, how we are treated at work, positive work attitudes, stress, age of the employee, and tenure of the employee.

Job Performance

  • Job performance: Degree to which an employee successfully fulfills job description factors.

    • Measured by quality, quantity, accuracy, speed, and effectiveness.

  • Determines promotions, rewards, responsibilities, and termination decisions.

  • Major predictors:

    • General mental ability

    • Perceptions of organizational justice

    • Interpersonal relationships

    • Stress levels

    • Work attitudes (satisfaction, engagement)

    • Conscientiousness, emotional intelligence, and proactive personality

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

  • Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB): Voluntary behaviors benefiting others and the organization.

    • Examples: Helping new coworkers, volunteering for company events.

  • Major predictors:

    • Organizational justice

    • Interpersonal relationships

    • Conscientiousness and agreeableness

    • Positive job attitudes

    • Age

Counterproductive Behaviors at Work

  • Abusing Others: Gossiping, harassment, insults, etc.

  • Production Deviance: Intentional low performance.

  • Theft: Stealing money or items.

  • Sabotage: Damaging equipment or environment.

  • Withdrawal Behaviors: Long breaks, tardiness, skipping work.

Absenteeism

  • Absenteeism: Unscheduled absences from work.

  • Causes:

    • Health reasons

    • Work-life balance issues

    • Poor work attitudes

    • Age

OB Toolbox: Dealing with Late Coworkers

  • Identify the root cause of lateness.

  • Ensure lateness has consequences.

  • Schedule meetings considering everyone's schedules.

  • Request late individuals to compensate with extra work.

  • Send reminders before meetings.

  • Reward timeliness.

  • Be punctual.

Turnover

  • Turnover: Employee leaving the organization.

    • Voluntary: Employee-initiated.

    • Involuntary: Organization-initiated.

  • Reasons:

    • Performance level

    • Work attitudes

    • Stress levels

    • Personality

    • Age and tenure

    • Job embeddedness: Reduces turnover when employees have strong links, fit, and sacrifices associated with leaving.

Turnover (Continued)

  • Employees leave due to:

    • Lack of fairness and a positive atmosphere.

    • Lack of feedback, autonomy, and involvement in decisions.

    • Insufficient rewards and benefits.

    • High stress.

    • Market demand influence voluntary turnover.

OB Toolbox: Tips for Leaving Your Job Gracefully

  • Avoid stealing from the company.

  • Complete ongoing work.

  • Protect your professional reputation.

  • Refrain from badmouthing the employer.

  • Inform your boss first, professionally.

  • Avoid frequent job changes.

  • Do not quit impulsively.

Section 4.4 Learning Objectives

  • Consider the role of job attitudes on ethical behavior.

  • Consider the relationship between job attitudes, behaviors, and technology

  • Consider the role of national culture on job attitudes and behaviors.

Job Attitudes, Behaviors, and Ethics

  • Employees prefer ethical work environments.

  • Companies valuing ethics have employees who are:

    • Happier

    • More committed

    • Less likely to leave

  • Ethical climate relates to citizenship behaviors and reduced absenteeism.

Job Attitudes, Behaviors, and Ethics (Continued)

  • High job satisfaction/commitment may hinder recognition of company wrongdoing.

  • Whistleblowers tend to have moderate commitment levels.

  • Preventing unethical behavior:

    • Close monitoring (may reduce satisfaction/commitment).

    • Cultivating an ethical climate with shared values.

Job Attitudes, Behaviors, and Technology

  • Organizations increase technology use.

  • Upskilling: Teaching new skills to adapt to technological advances.

  • Outcomes:

    • Varying job attitudes (positive or negative) depending on training and career paths.

    • Potential job loss.

    • Loneliness at work.

Job Attitudes Around the Globe

  • In individualistic cultures:

    • Work-family conflict lowers job satisfaction.

  • In collectivistic cultures:

    • Sacrifices for work may improve coworker relationships.

    • Agreeableness strongly relates to organizational commitment.

  • Factors that make people happy generalize across cultures.

People Come First: The Case of SAS

  • SAS Institute Inc.: Largest privately held software company.

  • Attributes success to workforce performance/loyalty.

  • Provides challenging projects.

  • Removes productivity obstacles.

  • Conducts regular employee satisfaction surveys.

  • Encourages reasonable work hours.

Case Discussion Questions

  • Can cutting-edge technology offer a distinct advantage in employee retention and satisfaction? Why or why not?

  • Do heavy investments in employee perks ultimately pay off for a company, even during hard economic times?

  • How much of an advantage does SAS have, given that the company produces analytic software to help businesses improve their functionality?

  • How do challenging projects and a high level of trust contribute to employee creativity and innovation?

Key Terms

  • Attitude: Opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of the environment.

  • Job satisfaction: Feelings about one's job.

  • Organizational commitment: Emotional attachment to the company.

  • Job engagement: Investment of mental, emotional, and physical energies at work.

  • Psychological contract: An unwritten understanding about what the employee will bring to the work environment and what the company will provide in exchange.

  • Psychological contract breach: Violation of the unwritten understanding between the employee and the organization regarding expectations.

  • Perceived organizational support: The degree to which employees feel that the organization cares about their well-being, values them, and fulfills their needs.

  • Attitude surveys: Surveys that measure employee attitudes at work.

  • Pulse surveys: Short surveys given to employees very frequently.

  • Exit interview: A meeting with the departing employee.

  • Sentiment analysis: Automatic identification and coding of positive and negative sentiments in a text.

  • Job performance: Degree to which an employee successfully fulfills the factors included in the job description; also known as in-role performance.

  • General mental ability: Reasoning abilities, verbal and numerical skills, analytical skills, and overall intelligence level., or cognitive abilities,

  • Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB): Voluntary behaviors employees perform to help others and benefit the organization.

  • Counterproductive work behaviors (CWB): Intentional employee behaviors that harm the organization.

  • Absenteeism: Unscheduled absences from work.

  • Presenteeism: Showing up to work despite being sick.

  • Turnover: Employee departure from an organization.

  • Job embeddedness: A condition where people have strong links and fit with their organization and job, thus leaving would entail a large number of sacrifices.

  • Whistleblowers: People who report wrongdoing.

  • Upskilling: Teaching employees new skills.