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CHAPTER
3
Values, Attitudes, and
Diversity in the Workplace
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Values
Values: Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or endstate of existence is personally or socially preferable to an
opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence
Concepts or beliefs that guide how we make decisions about and evaluations
of behaviours and events.
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.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Moral Principles
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.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Values in the Canadian Workplace
Generational & Cultural differences
Baby Boomers (born mid-1940s to mid1960s)
 Achievement and material success
are very important
 Sense of accomplishment and social
recognition rank high with them
 Pragmatists who believe ends can
justify the means
Generation X (born mid-1960s to late 1970s)
 Value flexibility, life options and
achievement of job satisfaction
 Family and relationships are very
important
 Less willing to make personal
sacrifices for the sake of their
employer than Boomers
Millennials (born between 1979 and 1994)
 High expectations; seek meaning in
their work
 Tend to be questioning, electronically
networked and entrepreneurial
 Socially responsible
2011 Census findings on newcomers
 20.6 percent of Canadian population
is foreign born vs. 12.9 percent for
USA
 46 percent of Toronto’s population
 40 percent of Vancouver’s
population
 22.6 percent of Montreal’s
population
2011 Census findings on language
 20 percent spoke neither English nor
French as their first language. Of
these:
 Largest majority spoke Punjabi,
Chinese (not specified)
Cantonese, and Spanish
Attitudes
Attitudes are positive or
negative feelings concerning
objects, people, or events.
They reflect how we feel
about something. More
importantly, attitudes can
affect job behavior
An attitude is made up of 3
components:
Cognitive component – the
opinion or belief segment of
an attitude Affective
component – the emotional
or feeling segment of an
attitude Behavioural
component – an intention to
behave in a certain way
toward someone or
something
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Types of Attitudes
The four important attitudes that affect organizational performance:
Job Satisfaction An individual’s positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics.
Organizational Commitment
Job Involvement
Perceived Organizational Support
Employee Engagement
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Job Satisfaction
A strong correlation between how well people enjoy the social context of their workplace and
how satisfied they are overall. Key aspects of the social context of work: Interdependence
Feedback, Social support, and Interaction with co-workers outside the workplace.
Key sources of Job Satisfaction: the work itself, salary 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.
Job Satisfaction affects:
Individual productivity
Organizational productivity
Organizational citizenship behaviour
Customer satisfaction
Absenteeism and Turnover
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
How Employees Can Express Dissatisfaction
• Exit
• Voice
• Loyalty
• Neglect
Managers Often Don’t Get it
Research findings on large organizations:
 Stock prices in high morale organizations grew 19.4 percent and only 10
percent for the medium an low morale group.
 Many managers are not concerned with job satisfaction measures.
 Many other managers overestimate the job satisfaction of their
employees.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Types of Attitudes
Organizational Commitment A state in which an employee identifies with a
particular organization and its goals, and wishes to remain a member of the
organization.
Three Types
Affective commitment
An individual’s emotional attachment to an organization and a belief in its
values
Normative commitment
The obligation an individual feels to staying with an organization for moral or
ethical reasons.
Continuance commitment
An individual’s perceived economic value of remaining with an organization.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Types of Attitudes
Job Involvement
Measures the degree to which people identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and
considers performance important to self-worth
Psychological empowerment – employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence their
work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job and their perceived
autonomy.
Perceived Organizational Support
Degree to which employees believe the organization values their contributions and care about
their well-bring.
Employees perceive their organization as supportive when:
 rewards are deemed fair
 when employees have voice in decisions
 when employees view their supervisors as
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Types of Attitudes
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
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Managing Diversity in the Workplace
Organizations increasingly face diversity concerns as workplaces become more heterogeneous.
 Most obvious are biographical characteristics such as age, gender, race, disability, and
length of service
 Other differences include religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity
 Diversity in ability
 Protected groups – women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal people, and visible
minorities
Effective Diversity Programs include promoting:
 legal framework for equal employment opportunity and encourage fair treatment of all
people
 how a diverse workforce will be better able to serve a diverse market of customers and
clients
 personal development practices that bring out the skills and abilities of all workers
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
Summary
1.
Values represent basic convictions about what is important, right and good.
2.
Attitudes tend to predict behaviours
3.
Job satisfaction leads to better performance.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
OB at Work: For Review
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What are the three components of an attitude?
Are these components related or unrelated?
What are the key attitudes that affect organizational performance?
In what ways are these attitudes alike?
What is unique about each?
How does ethics relate to values?
What causes job satisfaction? For most people, is pay or the work itself
more important?
8. What outcomes does job satisfaction influence?
9. What implications do the consequences of job satisfaction have for
management?
10. What are the four employee responses to job dissatisfaction?
11. How do organizations manage diversity effectively?
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
OB at Work: For Managers
■ Pay attention to your employees’ job satisfaction levels as
determinants of their performance, turnover, absenteeism,
and withdrawal behaviours.
■ Measure employee job attitudes objectively and at regular
intervals in order to determine how employees are reacting
to their work.
■ To raise an employee’s job satisfaction, evaluate the fit
between the employee’s work interests and the intrinsic
parts of his/her job to create work that is challenging and
interesting to the employee.
■ Consider the fact that high pay alone is unlikely to create a
satisfying work environment.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.
OB at Work: For Managers
■ Understand your organization’s anti-discrimination policies
thoroughly and share them with your employees.
■ Look beyond readily observable biographical characteristics
and consider the individual’s capabilities before making
management decisions.
■ Fully evaluate what accommodations a person with disabilities
will need and then fine-tune a job to that person’s abilities.
■ Seek to understand and respect the unique biographical
characteristics of your employees; a fair but individualoriented approach yields the best performance.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Canada Inc.