SBenegaL

Category: Work Attitude

  • Work Values in a Cultural Context

    In the last byte, we looked at values that are important in a work place. In today’s byte, we look at values in a cultural context.

    With increasing globalization the diversity of workplace is increasing more than ever. Doing business in a global market place often gets the managers in an encounter of a clash of values amongst different cultures. Cultures could differ in terms of the understanding of value, or the perceived value of individual’s contributions to work. Values also affect the individual’s view of what constitutes authority.

    Managers in this global context would need to

    1. Learn more about and recognize the values of other people.
    2. Avoid prejudging the business customs of others as immoral or corrupt.
    3. Find legitimate ways to operate within other’s ethical points of view – do not demand them to operate within your value system
    4. Avoid rationalizing “borderline” actions with excuses
    5. Refuse to do business when stakeholder violate or compromise laws or fundamental organizational values
    6. Conduct relationships as openly and aboveboard as possible.
    As business grow global, questions involving values become even more complex.

    Last but not the least; values are important since they provide guidance for behavior. This makes it extremely related to the question of ethics.

  • Organizational Commitment – Work Attitude

    In the last byte, we looked at Job Satisfaction in a cultural context. In today’s byte, we define a new concept Organizational Commitment and begin the discussion on it.


    There exists a hotel in the town of Udupi, where the waiters have served the organization for more than 3 decades. It is rear to see someone stay with a hotel for that long! It is possible only if the individual has identified with the organization. There could be other reasons why one identifies with the organization, we shall explore these further.


    The strength of an individual’s identification with an organization is generally termed Organizational Commitment.


    Organizational commitment is of three kinds
    1. Affective Commitment
    2. Continuance Commitment
    3. Normative Commitment
    Affective Commitment indicates the commitment of an employee to remain in the organization because of strong desire to do so. This desire could be due to the belief the individual holds in the goals and values of the organization or willingness to put forth efforts on behalf of the organization or a desire to remain a member of the organization.


    Continuance Commitment indicates the employee’s tendency to continue with the organization because the person cannot afford to leave the organization. This is generally built on the belief that any shift in the work space would only get them to lose the investment of time and effort already done in the present organization.


    Normative commitment indicates a perceived obligation an individual would have to remain with the organization. It is the individual’s feeling that one has to say with the organization that makes him/her continue with the organization.


    We shall deal about these in greater detail over the next few bytes.

  • Work Attitude – Job Satisfaction – 2

    In the last byte, we discussed an interesting concept – Organizational Citizenship Behavior. In today’s byte we continue our discussion about work attitude and deal specifically a certain interesting aspects in the study of job satisfaction and the behavior of people, also talk about how cultures impacts job satisfaction.


    It is common human behavior to avoid something that is not pleasing, work too is no exception to this. A common employee behavior that is seen when something is not enjoyable at office, employees tend to delay the closure of what they see as a seemingly uninteresting job. They do this by avoiding devoting time on it, there by delaying it. Another behavior that is seen in employees when they do not enjoy their work is abscentism. It is generally seen that the worker’s dissatisfaction with work is the main reason for people being absent at work.


    Job Satisfaction is also influenced by the culture. For the sake of discussion, we could take the scene in the United States and Korea. American Managers place a high value on outcomes, autonomy, independence and achievement; this is in line with the belief that “works for its own sake” and this is central part of their life. The Koreans in contrast are found to place family before work. The Americans are found to find greater job satisfaction through intrinsic job factors while Koreans are found to prefer extrinsic factors.


    The current global nature of work requires managers to understand that job satisfaction is significantly affected by culture.

  • Organizational Citizenship Behavior – Work Attitude

    In the last byte we looked at job satisfaction and the affect of this attitude on behavior. In today’s byte, we look at a positive side effect of job satisfaction called Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).

    Organizational Citizenship Behavior refers to the behavior that is above and beyond the call of duty.

    A short story I heard about work attitude is what I would like to share here. It revolves around a fresh recruit in an organized retail store who had undergone a training program on work attitude. The usual job of this recruit was to pack all the items of a customer into a few handy cover bags to carry away. Her usual duty didn’t require her to do anything in addition to this. After the attitude training, training she went home and took along with her a few carry bags, over night she spent some time looking out for interesting facts and adages that could inspire people and stuck them on the carry bag. Over time, this initiative of hers began engaging the customers to align towards her counter to get their packing done. The recruit who moved out of what was just defined as her duty got enormous recognition for the initiative she had taken.

    Such a behavior to go beyond the call of duty is important when organizations use teams to get their work done – employees depend on extra help from each other to get things accomplished. Satisfied workers are more likely to want to give something back to their organization because they want to reciprocate their positive experiences.

    Individuals who identify strongly with the organization are more likely to perform OCB. High-self monitors also more likely to perform OCBs. It is often seen that OCBs are contagious, generally an entire department could also benefit from one worker’s OCB.

  • Work Attitude – Job Satisfaction

    In the last byte, we looked at work attitudes and how it is could be influenced by the work environment. In today’s byte, we look at specific work attitude – Job Satisfaction.

    Job satisfaction refers to a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience. In many ways it is a general attitude, but creates a satisfactory feeling through the combination of five specific dimensions:

    1. The Pay
    2. The Work itself
    3. Promotion opportunities
    4. Supervision
    5. Coworkers who work with you

    Given that job satisfaction has different dimensions, it is possible that one would be satisfied with one of these dimensions but be dissatisfied with other dimensions. As an employee you could possibly be satisfied with the pay but not the promotion policy and the work that you do could be thoroughly hated while the coworkers could be extremely cooperative and give you satisfaction of working with them.  It is generally seen that Challenging work, competent supervision, opportunities of advancement, valued rewards along with supportive coworkers are dimensions that lead to satisfaction.

    It is a commonly held belief that happy or satisfied employees are more productive at work. It is also true that most of us feel satisfied when we believe we are performing better than usual. If the first one true, the all that a manager would need to do is keep the workers happy and this would automatically improve the performance. In the latter case the manager would need to ensure that the employee performs well, and this would lead to satisfaction. It is clear from our argument above that the relation is not so straight forward.

    The possible reason why this is not so straight forward could be

    • the inherent difficulty in demonstrating the attitude – behavior link
    • the dimension of “reward” is one of the main sources that make this relation difficult to answer.