Chapter 3 OB: Values, attitudes and, diversity
• Values
– Concepts or beliefs that guide how we make decisions about, and evaluations of, behaviours
and events.
– Basic convictions that a 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.
• Two frameworks for understanding values
– Milton Rokeach’s value survey
– Kent Hodgson’s general moral principles
• Types of values
– Terminal: goals that individuals would like to achieve during their lifetime
– Instrumental: preferable ways of behaving
• Importance of values
– Values generally influence attitudes and behaviour.
• Ethics
– The study of moral values or principles that guide our behaviour, and inform us whether our
actions are right or wrong.
• Ethical values are related to moral judgments about right and wrong.
• Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing Culture:
• Power Distance: extent to which society accepts unequal distribution of power.
• Individualism vs. Collectivism: degree to which ppl act as invdividuals vs. members of a
group.
• Masculinity vs. Femininity: degree to which cultures favour traditional masculine roles vs. a
culture that treats women as equals (high femininity rating)
• Uncertainty Avoidance: extent to which culture feels threatened by ambiguity/uncertainty
• Long Term vs. Short Term Orientation: valuing behaviours that give future rewards vs.
current rewards.
• South American nations tend to be higher on uncertainty avoidance and asian countries ten to
have long term orientation
• GLOBE framework for assessing cultures – GLOBE dimensions are as follows: Assertiveness,
Future orientation, Gender differentiation, Uncertainty avoidance, Power distance,
Individualism/Collectivism, In-group collectivism (collectivism in small groups like family etc.
rather than a general societal collectivism), Performance orientation, Humane orientation.
• GLOBE added dimensions such as humane orientation and performance orientation to
Hofstede’s dimensions
• Values in the Canadian Workplace: Generational Differences (reflect societal values of the period
in which they grew up), Cultural Differences
• Attitudes: Positive or negative feelings concerning objects, people, or events; Attitudes are less
stable than values; they are responses to situations and are thus not values(which are concrete
regardless of situation)
• Three important attitudes affect organizational performance:
• Job satisfaction: general attitude toward job
• Organizational commitment: A state in which an employee identifies with a particular
organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization
• Employee engagement • Key sources of Job Satisfaction:
• Work itself, pay, advancement opportunities, supervision, co-workers
• Enjoying the work itself is almost always most strongly correlated with high levels of job
satisfaction.
• Once a person reaches the level of comfortable living the relationship between pay and
satisfaction virtually disappears.
• People with positive core self-evaluations , believe in their inner worth and basic competence,
and are more satisfied with their work.
• Satisfaction affects: Individual productivity, Organizational productivity, Organizational citizenship
behaviour (OCB = discretionary behaviour that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements,
but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the organization), Job satisfaction and
customer satisfaction Employee satisfaction is related to positive customer outcomes.
• Many managers are not concerned with job satisfaction measures. Many other managers overestimate
the job satisfaction of their employees
• Organizational Commitment:
• Affective commitment: An individual’s relationship to the organization.
• Normative commitment: The obligation an individual feels to staying with an 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 it.
• Employee Engagement
• An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for work he or she does.
• Highly engaged employees have a passion for their work and feel a deep connection to the
company.
• Firms that have employees with a higher level of engagement tend to see positive results:
Higher customer satisfaction, More productive employees, Higher profits, Lower levels of
turnover and accidents
• Managing Diversity in the workplace: there is little research showing that values can be changed
successfully thus workplaces try to address diversity through education aimed at changing attitudes;
due to generational differences in the workforce tensions over diversity initiatives in the workplace
might last a long time
• Cultural Intelligence: The ability to understand someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures in the
same way as would people from his or her culture.
• Individuals with high c
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