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  • 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.

  • Work Values

    In the last byte, we looked at how we could classify an individual’s values. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of value in the light of a work environment – we call these “work values”.

    If one were to ask why it is important to understand values in the context of a work settings; it would be good to realize that it is the basis of how individuals behave on their jobs in terms of what they see is right action and what would be a wrong action. Research has identified 4 work values:

    1. Achievement – is concerned with the development of one’s career
    2. Concern for others – is shown in the form of an individual caring for one’s colleagues,
    3. Honesty – is about providing accurate information and refusing to mislead others for personal gains
    4. Fairness – emphasizes impartiality and recognizes different points of views
    Given the large number of people who work in an organization, it is pretty clear that the individual value systems would differ. If people share similar values at work, it is found to produce positive results. Research has also found that employees who share their supervisor’s values are more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to the organization.

    It is also seen that values have a profound influence on job choice decisions that the individual takes. Organizations would need to keep this in mind when they are to look at the value compatibility when making a recruitment decision.  Organizations’ should also take care to send the right signals of their value systems in the market.

  • Values – Classification

    In the last byte, we understood about values and their increasing significance in the organizational context today. In today’s byte, we look at the classifying these values and attempt to understand them better.

    When one looks at the remarkable accomplishment of Dr Muhammad Yunus, one would definitely begin to wonder where he got this energy from! It is to be understood that, if he didn’t have a larger than life goal of seeing a better living standard for the people surrounding them, then something like this wouldn’t have been possible to achieve. This terminal goal played a serious role in his ability to achieve the change that he has been to initiate.

    Similarly, values could be seen as terminal in nature – these values represent the goals to be achieved or the ends state of existence. Goals like World Peace, Self-respect, and Prosperity etc are all examples of those.

    While these are more a goal to work, there are other values that represent the acceptable behavior to be used in achieving some end state. These are called Instrumental Values. Examples of these could be values like independence, courage, ambition etc.

    It could be seen that, both terminal and instrumental value work in concert to provide individuals with goals to strive for an acceptable way to achieve the goals.

  • Values

    In the last byte, we looked at persuasion routes and understood the difference between them. In today’s byte, we move to understanding the concept of value.

    In our surroundings, we find people doing various activities. On watching some of these, we find that it creates a negative feeling in our mind; if you were in such a situation, you possibly wouldn’t do it. While the action was right for an individual, it looked completely wrong in your eyes! What is it that creates a sense of right and wrong, good and bad in the minds of an individual? It is the value that the individual possesses.

    Values could be understood as enduring beliefs 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. – This definition was proposed by Rokeach, an early scholar on human values.

    Values exist at a deeper level than attitudes and are more general and basic in nature. The behavior of the individuals is generally evaluated with the use of values. It is these values that give the sense of right and wrong, good and bad.

    If one is to think about what are the various factors and sources that would influence values – these are generally picked up when an individual grows and matures. These values also change over time – the experiences of life are the major factors which create this change. Cultures, Society, and Organizations also influence the shaping of these values.

    Businesses realize the importance of understanding the values compatibility of their employees, and are increasingly trying to understand the relation of values with the corporate behavior, ethics etc.

  • Persuasion Model – Explanation

    In the last byte, we look at the model of persuasion. In today’s byte we discuss the model in detail.

    The model described in the earlier byte is called – the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. The model is called so, since the model could be differentiated based on the degree of elaboration, or scrutiny and its impact on persuasion. As indicated in the model, there could broadly be two routes to persuasion

    1. The Central Route
    2. The Peripheral Route
    In the first approach towards persuasion, the attempt to persuade is focused on the target’s cognitive appeal. In such a scenario, the content of the message is of extremely important. The arguments have to be provided logically and should be convincing. If this is executed right, the attitude change would follow.

    In the peripheral route, the appeal is not based on the message content. In this scenario, the target may be persuaded based on the characteristics of the persuader – It could be due to the expertise the individual possess, or the trustworthiness, or attractiveness. They could also be persuaded by the use of statistics, or the number of arguments or the method of presentation – these are not the message itself but the non-substantial aspects of the message.

    Central route is found to be more effective when the message context is personalized and strikes a chord to be able to motivate the individual to change the attitude. Thus the involvement of the target in the process is an important factor.

    Given this, the manager would have to structure the content of the messages carefully, develop their own attributes that will help them be more persuasive and choose a method of presentation that will attractive to the listeners.

  • Persuasion Model – R E Petty & J T Cacioppo

    In the last byte, we read about how the message characteristics affect persuasion. In today’s byte, we would look at t model that was suggested by R E Petty and J T Cacioppo: “The Elaboration Likelihood of Persuasion”.


    The image below broadly describes 2 means of which one could get persuaded to change the attitude.





    We shall describe these in detail in the next blog.

  • Persuasion – Message

    In the last byte, we looked at the characteristics of the target that tend to influence the persuasion that a manager wishes to accomplish. In today’s byte, we continue from this point and attempt understanding how “message” itself would influence the aspect of persuasion.

    In Kannada one of the numerous languages in India, there exists an adage, which would roughly translate to the following saying: “He who knows how to speak is one without enemies.” This adage simply summarizes how effective the message is when one attempts to persuade someone to change. Managers would need to frame their thoughts really well in order to be persuasive with their employees.

    Let us take a sample scenario, as a manager there is a policy that the management of the company intends to implement. The policy is seen not favorably by the employees and they are showing resentment. As a manager, your are entrusted with the task of trying to persuade the change in your employee’s attitude. What is the approach towards framing the message could you take?

    It has been seen that, an effective strategy would be to present both sides of the issue.  When both sides of the issue are presented, the employees would not just see that you support one side of the issue, but also acknowledge the other side!  Instead if the approach is to refute the other side, it would only breed negativity to the whole attempt.

    When one communicates the tone of the message too is an important aspect to be thought about – Persuasion is found to be more successful when it is framed in the same emption as the one felt by the target!

    It is not just a manager who would find a persuasive message useful – the prevalence of advertisements in magazines is a clear indication of the intention to persuade customers to purchase!

  • Persuasion – Target Characteristics

    In the last byte, we began a discussion on persuasion to change the attitude of an individual. In today’s byte, we move ahead from looking at how the source characteristics can affect persuasion and look at the target characteristics to understand how it influences persuasion.

    When a manager attempts to persuade his team members to change their attitude towards work, there are certain characteristics of the individual he would need to understand and consider significantly. One of the most important of these characteristics is the self-esteem of the individual. People with high self esteem are generally less likely to change their attitude compared to those with a lower self esteem, when persuaded.

    It is also an observation that people who hold extreme attitudes are thought to persuade. A person who is a fanatic believer of a particular belief would be extremely hard to persuade to act against his belief. His attitude is less likely to change.

    From our practical experience, we would have also noticed that people are ready to change when they are in a happier mood. It is commonly realized by kids, and they generally make requests to their parents when they are in a happy mood. It is also the logic that people take their friends out for a party to request some favor 😉

    If you were to ask if there is a single definitely way to persuade an individual – the answer is simply no. Managers would need to realize that there is no universal accepted mechanism to persuade people to change attitude, the ability to change the attitude also depends on the state in which the target of persuasion is.

  • Changing the Attitude of People

    Continuing from the last byte where we discussed the relation between job satisfaction and its influence on organizational commitment, we today begin a discussion on understanding how attitude of people could change.


    Attitude could change through the process of persuasion. Managers who work with employees many a times are pressed with the need to change the attitude of their employees. Given this, in today’s world it is essential for managers to really skilled in the art of persuasion. The days when employees could simply be told what is to be done and then control them are counted if not gone.


    Persuasion is a process through with one individual (source) tries to change the attitude of another person (target).


    To understand the process of persuasion, we would need to look at the 3 components that would be involved in the process:
    1. The source
    2. The target
    3. The Message
    Let us begin with understanding the “Source Characteristics” in this blog and then carry the remaining over to the next one.


    It is human nature to believe in people who are considered experts in a field. If a scientist talks about a new sub atomic particle, it would be more acceptable to the general public; than an individual like me – with little science to back my claim of the discovery of a new sub atomic particle. Clearly Expertise is a major factor that would affect persuasion.


    Trust is another important characteristic of an individual that plays a role in persuasion. It is easily seen, when we consider the fact that we are willing to change our attitude when one of our loved ones we are more open to change when our parents or siblings point a requirement to change in attitude, compared to a completely unknown individual. This is also aligned with the other aspect of these loved ones – the attractiveness we have with the person. The more attracted we are to the source; we are more open to change in attitude.


    In short, expertise, trust and attractiveness are major influences of the source. Managers would need to focus on developing these characteristics to be more effective in persuasion.

  • Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

    In the last byte, we looked at what a manager would have to do in order to enhance organizational commitment. In today’s byte we shall look at the relation between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

    We have already understood the importance of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Given the benefits that an organization would accrue from improving these two important work attitudes, every manager would strive to improve these.

    These 2 work attitudes are extremely interrelated, both affective and normative commitments are related to job satisfaction. It has also been found that increasing the job satisfaction also increases the commitment of an employee towards the organization.

    Managers could begin their act in this direction by taking an attitude survey to understand the employee’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with specific facets of their jobs. They could then chalk out an action plan to make the deficient aspects of the job more satisfying.

    Since work attitude influence the business outcomes, it is important that they carefully looked at. Job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior is seen to have a very close alignment with the customer satisfaction and company profitability.