W4 - Values & Attitudes (Organisational Behaviour) Flashcards
What are the 5 cultural variations in values?
- Individualism - extent to which people emphasise personal vs. group goals
- Power distance - extent to which members of a culture accept inequality (SG is 74)
- Achievement orientation (masculinity) - extent to which cultures differentiate gender roles, and stress materialism/competition vs. caring for others & quality of life
- Uncertainty avoidance - extent to which people tolerate ambiguous & uncertain situations
- Future orientation - extent to which a culture values persistence, thrift, and perseverance
What is most important in organisational behaviour?
Country power distance
What does power distance positively relates to?
- Conformity
- Corruption
- Neuroticism (locus of control - when an individual does not have power and must do what those with power are telling an individual to do)
What does power distance negatively relates to?
- Wealth
- Gender & income equality
- Life satisfaction
Why is power distance negatively related to life satisfaction?
- External locus of control
- Power distance decreases social progress, influencing people to conform to strict social rules and maintain status quo
4 scenarios
When does values predict organisational behaviour more strongly?
- When older, male & more educated individuals are studied, since males tend to have more resources, power and autonomy.
- When studies collect primary data (asking participants to fill up their own value orientations) instead of secondary
- When the outcome is more proximal (short-term)
- When the culture is considered tight rather than loose, since a tight culture signifies a society that is similar, which means lower variability
The 3 reasons why cultural values important for us to understand organisational behaviour?
- Cultural values influence our work values and hence:
- Influence our attitudes
- and behaviours
What are the 4 employees’ primary work values?
- Honesty
- Fairness
- Concern for Others
- Achievement
What is person-environment fit?
Focuses on the congruence between employees’ values and those of their environments (eg. organisation, coworker, supervisor)
What does person-environment fit relates to?
Common sense impact of fit
- Increased job satisfaction
- Increased commitment
- Increased work adjustment
- Decreased job stressors
Arthur, Bell., Villado & Doverspike (2006):
Relation of person-environment fit to work performance & turnover
Person-environment fit INDIRECTLY affects performance & turnover via attitudes
Hence,
Fit does not directly predict performance & turnover.
Why does generational differences make it difficult to research on organisational behaviour?
- Younger individuals value status, work-life balance, and rapid career growth more than older individuals
- Some research suggests same values are shared between generations, but value expression is different
What is the difference between values and attitudes?
Values are broad tendencies, while attitudes have a specific target.
Values for working influences our attitudes and feelings toward work.
Do attitudes guide our actions?
Yes, when:
- Outside influences are minimal
- We are keenly aware of our attitudes (strong attitudes)
Do actions then influence our attitudes?
Yes, when you behave a certain way, our attitudes are also influenced
Why do actions influence attitudes?
When people experience cognitive dissonance (tension caused when our thoughts and behaviours do not coincide), we adjust our attitudes to justify our actions.
Does acting influence attitudes?
Yes, acting changes your attitude.
Effort justification (amount of reward or justification for acting contrary to one’s belief influences the amount of dissonance experienced) affects the extent of the change, by resolving the cognitive dissonance.
eg. You put in a lot of effort but outcome is not satisfactory, but effort justification = convince themselves that the result is better than expected.
What are the 3 Job Satisfaction theories?
- Information Processing Theory
- Social Comparison Theory
- Herzberg’s 2 Factor Theory
What is Information Processing Theory?
Derive our level of satisfaction by looking at the information (social contacts, our peers) in our immediate environment
eg. If peers are happy with their jobs, then we are happy with our jobs too
What is Social Comparison theory?
Compare your inputs & outputs with someone else (typically someone we see similar / slightly better)
What is Herzberg’s 2 Factor theory?
Decide whether we are happy based on 2 factors:
- Hygiene (safe work envt, pay)
- Motivator (status, prestige)
Why is there a mismatch:
Most people are satisfied with their jobs, while we think they are not
- Cognitive dissonance (eg. going to that job for 3 years)
- Rationalisation (worked for 30 jobs, I must like it)
- Impression management (hey, how’s work going?)
How is Job Descriptive Index (facet level) as a measurement to job satisfaction?
5 facets: work itself, pay, promotions, supervision & co-workers
it is MOST WIDELY USED.
Facet level measure gets the components from which a person might derive their overall level of satisfaction (get an all-rounded/overall measure).
Differences of Gender with Job Satisfaction?
Often no differences, or women may be slightly more satisfied due to:
- Role theory (role women play in our society)
- Women expect discrimination
Does job satisfaction correlate with absence/turnover?
Yes, job satisfaction predicts absence and turnover, but does so more strongly for turnover
Moderators of job satisfaction - job performance relation?
- Job autonomy
More freedom to perform their work –> affects performance - Job complexity
More complex jobs = more autonomy. Hence, complex jobs report higher sat-perf relations
How is affective-cognitive consistency (ACC) as a moderator to job sat - job perf?
(ACC is an index of attitude strength = high ACC means high alignment of emotions and their thoughts with their job)
High ACC shows a STRONG & positive correlation between job sat - job perf
Low ACC shows a WEAK & negative correlation between job sat - job perf
Does job satisfaction relate to customer satisfaction?
Yes.
Happier employees will display more positive emotions to customers, be less likely to quit.
Does customer satisfaction relate to organisational profitability?
Yes (no further explanation in slides is crazy)
4 reasons
Will more pay make employees more satisfied with their jobs?
Debatable:
- Pay satisfaction is a facet of job satisfaction
- Dispositional affectivity (an individual’s inherent tendency to experience positive & negative emotions which influence how they perceive and respond to situations) plays a role
- Adaptation-level principle (explains how people adjust to changes in their environment or experiences over time and how this adjustment influences their perceptions and satisfaction)
- Relative-deprivation principle (the idea that people’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction are heavily influenced by comparisons with others)
eg. High dispositional affectivity = Optimism; more positive outlook of their job
Lian, H., Ferris, D. L., & Brown, D. J. (2012):
Does power distance exacerbate or mitigate the effects of abusive supervision?
- People with high power distance are not bothered by abusive supervision. Less likely to perceive it as unfair since they accept hierarchical power as normative.
- As abuse supervision goes up, interpersonal deviance (gossiping about coworkers etc) goes up –> Explains social learning theory.
What is social learning theory?
Suggests that people can learn behaviours, attitudes, skills through social context
Helps to explain why individuals higher on power distance orientation are more likely to act interpersonally deviant when abusive supervision is higher.
In high power distance, I can’t ask my boss to stop the abusive behaviour. I unleash the aggression and take it out on my co-workers.
What is supervisory interpersonal justice?
Degree to which your supervisor treats you with dignity, respect and politeness.
What are the 2 alternative explanations to if power distance exacerbate or mitigate effects of abusive supervision?
- Depleted resources (employees have reduced capacity to deal with stress stemming from abusive supervision)
- Displaced aggression (employees redirect their frustration from the original source due to fear of more abuse from their supervisor if they retaliate)
How to design a study to rule out the alternative explanations?
Alternative explanations:
1. Social learning theory
2. Depleted resources
3. Displaced aggression
Place mediators that rule out effects of all 3 explanations (social learning, depleted resources & displaced aggression) of abusive supervision.
Mediators:
1. Likelihood of rewards (social learning) - eg. ask through surveys if abusive behaviours are likely to yield rewards
2. Ego depletion (depleted resources) - eg. measure self-control / cognitive capacity
3. Intrusion (depleted resources) - eg. measure extent of intrusive thoughts distract employees from their tasks
4. Deviance outside of work (displaced aggression) - eg. ask about behaviours towards family & friends to detect displaced aggression.
**Basically do things to detect the behaviours of the 3 aforementioned behaviours
What are the other 5 job attitudes?
- Commitment
- Trust
- Engagement
- Involvement
- Others (wtf lol)
What are the 3 predictors that predict (organisational) commitment?
- Affective - “want to stay”
- Continuance - “need to stay”
- Normative - “ought to stay”
What does Affective (predictor) predicts?
- Interesting work
- Enriched jobs
- Autonomy
What does Continuance (predictor) predicts?
- Pension funds
- Rapid promotions
- Embeddedness
What does Normative (predictor) predicts?
- Tuition reimbursement
- Important work - vision
Harrison, Newman & Roth (2006):
Studied overall job attitude comprised of satisfaction & commitment and performance
Does job attitude correlate with performance?
Integrated job attitudes strongly correlate with performance
Why did researchers ignored the role of emotions in organisations in the past?
- Difficult to identify and measure
- Emotions were seen as dysfunctional and inconsistent with the rationality paradigm of organisational research
What are the 7 discrete emotions?
- Happiness
- Surprise
- Anger
- Sadness
- Fear
- Disgust
- Contempt (feeling that a person is worthless)
What is emotional labour?
Act of expressing organisationally desired emotions
Strategies of emotional labour:
Deep acting - explain
Surface acting - explain
- Deep acting - change how they genuinely feel internally to match the emotions they are trying to express
- Surface acting - suppressing emotions and maintaining a calm outward appearance
What does deep acting positively correlates to?
**do take note that findings are inconsistent
- Personal accomplishment
- Organisational attachment
What does deep acting negatively correlates to?
- Emotional exhaustion
- Psychomatic complaints
What does surface acting positively correlates to?
Choose:
Emotional exhaustion
Psychological strain
Job dissatisfaction
Depersonalisation
Psychosomatic complaints
Organisational detachment
- Emotional exhaustion
- Psychological strain
- Job dissatisfaction
- Depersonalisation
- Psychosomatic complaints
- Organisational detachment
What does surface acting negatively correlates to?
Emotional exhaustion
Psychological strain
Job dissatisfaction
Depersonalisation
Personal accomplishments
Psychosomatic complaints
Organisational detachment
Personal accomplishments
What can be done to mitigate the negative effects of emotional labour?
- Pay sufficiently
- Hire those best suited for the job
- Give breaks - replenish cognitive resources
- Have employees consider positive aspects of their jobs
- Support employees
What are the emotional intelligence skills?
Personal competence:
What I see –> Self-awareness
What I do –> Self-management
Social competence:
What I see –> Social awareness
What I do –> Relationship management
What is the test that measures emotional intelligence?
Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence test (MSCEIT)
In MSCEIT, what are the four dimensions to the test?
- Perceiving emotions
- Facilitating emotions
- Understand (emotions)
- Manage (emotions)
Which dimension of MSCEIT is most important for performance?
Managing emotions
What does emotional regulation ability positively correlates to?
Cote et al. 2010:
Studies one’s ability to regulate emotions to meet situational demands
Those that better regulate their emotions well report highest life satisfaction / well-being, socio-economic status and income.
Why should we regulate our emotions well?
Why is emotional regulation ability important?
- Allows people to adapt and be flexible
- Enables people to communicate more effectively, develop better relations, and to be rewarded accordingly
Hence, emotional regulation relates to well-being and success
How does emotional intelligence and cognitive ability work together to predict performance?
Both interact to predict performance, such that at high levels of cognitive ability, emotional intelligence does not relate to performance.
But at low levels of cognitive ability, emotional intelligence positively relates to performance.
If people is low in EI, cognitive ability comes into play (vice versa)
Conclusion from emotions?
Which aspect of jobs does emotional labour impact?
Emotions matter.
Emotional labour impacts performance and other outcomes.
Can emotional intelligence be learned?
Emotional intelligence is an individual difference variable that some argue can be learned, to a certain extent.