A.

K H A L E Q U E

WORK VALUES, ATTITUDES AND PERFORMANCE

OF INDUSTRIAL W O R K E R S IN B A N G L A D E S H *

(Accepted 1 July, 1991)

ABSTRACT. This study was undertaken to assess and compare workers' attitudes and
values towards work, and find out the relationships between their work performance,
attitudes and values. The study was conducted on a sample of 60 (30 male and 30
female) garment workers. The results show that the rate of production of the male
workers is significantly higher than that of the female workers. The results further
reveal that the worker's performance is positively related to his/her work ethic,
attitudes towards mastery and competitiveness in work. But the performance has not
been found related to the worker's money beliefs and attitudes towards savings.

INTRODUCTION

A number of social scientists have proposed that national differences in

economic growth may be partly determined by the work values,
attitudes and motivations of the populations. This view was first
expressed by Max Weber (1904), who formulated the concept of
Protestant work ethic. A similar but not identical view was expressed
by McClelland (1961). He formulated the concept of achievement
motivation as an energizing condition of an individual leading him to
seek high standard of performance. McClelland proposed that there is
relationship between the rate of economic growth of a society and the
level of achievement motivation of the individuals living in that society.
McClelland (1961) undertook a labourious but systematic investigation
to see the relationship between achievement motivation and economic
development in a number of countries. However, his results have
proved controversial.
Finison (1976) has collected evidence to show that national levels of
achievement motivation do not always predict rates of economic
growth.
Recently, a number of social scientists have raised the question as to
whether there may be several different attitudinal and motivational

Sociallndicators Research 27: 187--195, 1992.

9 1992 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
188 A. K H A L E Q U E

factors connected with work effort. Among those who have proposed
plurality of attitudes, values and motivations for work effort are Spence
and Helmreich (1983). They suggested the work ethic, mastery, and
competitiveness are three important determinants of work effort. If this
is the case, it would be desirable to study how these variables influence
work performance and whether there are any national differences in the
strength of work attitudes, values and motivations which might underlie
national differences in economic growth.
The present study was undertaken to assess and compare a group of
Bangladeshi industrial workers' (both male and female) attitudes,
values, motivation and involvement towards work and find out the
inter-relationships between their work values, attitudes and perform-
ance.

METHOD

Subjects
The study was conducted on 60 randomly selected workers (30 male
and 30 female) of a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The mean
age of the male workers was 23 years (S.D. -- 2.81) and that of the
female workers was 22 years (S.D. -- 3.90). The educational qualifica-
tion of the male workers varied from primary to secondary school
levels and that of the female workers varied from illiteracy to primary
school levels. Their work schedule consisted of 6-day weeks (Saturday
to Thursday) and 8-hour days (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with one hour lunch
break). The task of the workers was to make different types of garments
for children and adults.

Measuring Instruments
Different dimensions of work attitudes, and values of the subjects were
measured with the following instruments:

The Work Ethic, Mastery and Competitiveness Scale: this scale was de-
veloped by Spence and Helmreich (1983). It consists of 6, 8 and 5
items for the measurement of work ethic, mastery and competitiveness,
 INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN B A N G L A D E S H 189

respectively. The items are answered on a 5-point rating scale ranging

from "strongly agree" through "don't know" to "strongly disagree". The
scores on the scale range from 0 to 4. The high scores on the scale
indicate high work ethic, mastery and competitiveness.
The results concerning the validity of the Spence -- Helmreich Scale
reveal that correlation coefficients of 0.27, 0.48 and 0.36 have been
found between Personality Attributes Questionnaire (Spence and
Helmreich, 1978) and each of the three sub-scales of work ethic,
mastery and competitiveness, respectively.

Money Belief Scale: this is a 5-item questionnaire for the measurement

of belief associated with money (Furnham, 1983). Each item of the
scale is rated on a seven point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 7
(very much).
Some preliminary research suggests that the scale was a reliable
instrument (r -- 0.84 on an N -- 33). The validity of the scale is
indicated by its significant correlation with the Money Attitude Scale
(Yamuchi and Templer, 1982).

The Savings Scale: this scale was developed by Yamuchi and Templer
(1982) to measure attitude towards saving money. This is a 7-point
rating scale consisting of 7 items. The scores on the scale range from 0
(never save) to 6 (always save). A higher score on the scale indicate
more positive attitude towards saving money.
The coefficient of alpha for the Saving Scale was 0.78. The validity
of the scale consisted of its correlation with some psychometric instru-
ments rationally predicted to measure similar theoretical constructs.
The scale was hypothesized to correlate negatively with the Time Com-
petency Sub-scale of the Personal Orientation Inventory (Shostrom,
1964), and positively with the Obsessional Personality Test (Klien,
1971). As hypothesized the Saving Scale was found to be negatively
correlated (r = -0.16) with the Time Competence and Personality
correlation (r = 0.40) with the Obsessional Personality Test.

Achievement Motivation Scale: this is a 14-item self reported achieve-

ment motivation scale, developed by Ray (1979). This scale was
constructed largely from the same item pool as used by Lynn (1969) in
190 A. K H A L E O U E

his scale. The items of the scale are answered on a three point scale
ranging from "yes" through "?" to "no". The scoring procedures are: yes
= 3, ? -----2, no -- 1 for positive items and yes = 1, ? -- 2, no -- 3 for
negative items.
The coefficient of alpha for this scale was 0.70 (Ray, 1979). The
validity coefficient for this scale as reported by Ray (1979) were: 0.53
(with self rated achievement motivation), 0.28 (with peer ratings), 0.03
to 0.78 (with some other achievement motivation scales), and 0.32
(with actual achievement).

The Work Involvement Questionnaire (WIQ): to assess the work

involvement of the subjects a 6-item Work Involvement Questionnaire
(WlQ), developed by Kanungo (1982), was used in this study. For the
WlQ items 6-point agree-disagree response format was used. In this
questionnaire, higher scores represent higher involvement.
The validity and reliability of the WIQ as reported by Kanungo
(1982) were quite high. The internal consistency and test-retest relia-
bility were: 0.75 and 0.67, respectively. The convergent and discrimi-
nant validity were 0.69 and 0.21, respectively.

The CareerPreference Scale: To assess the workers' preferences for six

different types of careers (i.e. Doctor, Social Worker, Director, Teacher,
Land Owner and Business Owner), a Hoppock (1935) type scale was
used in which the subjects were asked to rate preferences for these
careers on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 for "I don't like at all" to 6
for "I like very much" answers.

RESULTS

The results of the present study have been presented in the following
tables.
The results in Table I show that the mean scores of work ethic,
mastery, competitiveness, achievement motivation and work involve-
ment of the male workers are significantly higher than those of the
female workers. However, the mean score for money belief of the
female workers is significantly higher than that of the male workers. On
 INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN B A N G L A D E S H 191

TABLE I
The mean scores of work attitudes, values, motivation and work involvement of the
male and female workers

Mean and S.D. of Mean and S. D.

Scales male Ss (N = 30) of female Ss (N m 30) t p

Work ethic 20.50 (1.27) 19.23 (1.50) 3.52 < 0.001

Mastery 23.10 (3.90) 18.03 (3.43) 5.28 < 0.001
Competitiveness 16.37 (1.17) 15.57 (1.28) 2.50 < 0.02
Money beliefs 14.17 (3.31) 17.03 (4.30) 2.83 < 0.01
Savings 27.73 (5.04) 23.67 (6.56) 2.65 < 0.02
Achievement 36.42 (2.74) 34.48 (4.67) 2.73 < 0.01
motivation
Work involvement 22.00 (2.05) 20.00 (2.03) 3.77 < 0.001

the other hand, the mean score of saving is significantly higher for the
male than for the female workers.
The results concerning the career preferences are presented in Table
II.
The results in Table H show that the mean scores of the male
workers are significantly higher than that of the female workers for
most of the careers. However, there was no significant difference
between the two groups in their preference for country land ownership.
Moreover, the male and female workers equally registered highest
preference for the ownership of small business.
The results concerning work performance and the relationship
between performance and work attitudes are shown in Table III and IV,
respectively.

TABLE II
The mean scores of career preferences of the male and female workers

Mean and S.D. of The mean and S.D. of

Careers the male Ss (N ~ 30) the female Ss (N m 30) t p

Doctor 4.63 (1.22) 3.80 (1.39) 2.51 < 0.02

Social worker 4.83 (0.79) 4.17 (1.17) 2.64 < 0.02
Director 4.07 (1.12) 2.97 (1.52) 3.14 < 0.01
Teacher 5.17 (1.19) 3.43 (2.25) 3.70 < 0.001
Land owner 4.10 (0.84) 3.63 (1.62) 1.42 NS
Business owner 5.30 (1.03) 4.53 (1.69) 2.13 < 0.05
192 A. K H A L E Q U E

TABLE llI
Mean scores of work performance of the male and female workers

Mean units of Standard

Workers daily production deviation t p

Male (N ~ 30) 214.40 12.73 4.45 < 0.001

Female (N = 30) 198.16 12.27

TABLE IV
Correlations between work attitudes, values, motivation and performance of the male
and female workers

Correlation (r) for Correlation (r) for

the male Ss (N = 30) the female Ss (N = 30)

Work ethic and performance 0.59** 0.16

Mastery and performance 0.34* 0.03
Competitiveness and performance 0.62** 0.29
Savings and performance 0.23 -0.26
Money beliefs and performance -0.30 0.03
Achievement motivation and 0.01 0.03
performance

* Level of significance: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01. Correlation coefficients without asterisks
are not significant.

The results in Table III show that the mean unit of daily production
of the male workers is significantly higher than that of the female
workers.
The results further reveal that work performance is significantly
correlated with work ethic, attitudes towards mastery and competitive-
ness of the male workers. However, these correlations are not signifi-
cant for the female workers, though they are positive for both the male
and female subjects. But the workers' performance has not been found
related to their attitudes towards saving, money beliefs and achievement
motivation.

DISCUSSION

The male-female comparison about money beliefs and attitudes to-

wards savings reveals that the female workers give more importance to
 INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN B A N G L A D E S H 193

earning money but the male workers give more importance to saving
money. The reason for attributing less importance to saving by the
female workers may be that for most of them the job is an additional
source of income for the family, since the male members of their
families are engaged in income generating work elsewhere. But the
situation is different for the male workers, since most of them are the
only earning member in the family. The results seem to support the
view expressed by Furnham (1984) that people's money beliefs and
attitudes towards savings and usage of money are complex and multi-
faceted. Wernimont and Fitzpatrick (1972) found that people's work
experiences, sex and socio-economic level influence their perceptions
of money. Similarly, Goldberg and Lewis (1979) showed that age,
education and sex were related to monetary beliefs, attitudes towards
spending and saving money.
The results concerning the career preferences show that the mean
scores of the male workers are significantly higher than that of the
female workers for most of the careers. We do not clearly understand
the reason(s) for this. One possible reason may be that the educational
level of most of the female workers was much lower than that of the
male workers and that is why they (the female workers) were less
interested in these careers (such as doctor, director, teacher etc.) as
these were not applicable to them. However, there was no significant
difference between the two groups about their preference for country
land ownership. Moreover the male and the female workers equally
registered highest preference for the ownership of small business. One
possible explanation as to why they do not differ in their preference for
country land ownership and give highest priority to the ownership of
small business may be that these careers are seemingly feasible to them
than the other careers (such as doctor, director, teacher etc.), which are
beyond their reach. Besides, the majority of the male and female
workers come from landless rural population, who have migrated to the
capital city for work, and are living in slums. So, it seems obvious that
land and business ownerships will be attractive to them.
The results concerning work performance show that the rate of
production of the male workers is significantly higher than that of the
female workers. The cause(s) for this difference in the rate of produc-
tion is not quite clear to us. However, one plausible reason may be
overload of work for the female workers, because most of them are
194 A. K H A L E Q U E

married with children and have to play dual roles (i.e. domestic role
and employment role). A considerable amount of research evidence
suggests that performing a dual role is a difficult task and in this
situation women, particularly those with dependent children, experience
a great deal of stress and strain with deleterious effect on their health,
well-being and performance (Nye, 1974; Sekaran, 1985; Khaleque et
al., 1988). On the other hand, the difference in performance between
the male and female workers may be due to their differences in role
attitudes, expectations and role conflicts. Role attitudes and expecta-
tions are likely to vary between cultures, and between sexes in the same
culture. In Bangladesh, married women still consider domestic role as
primary and employment role as secondary (Khaleque et al., 1988). A
close fit that means high compatibility and better coordination between
domestic and employment roles may be helpful for enhancing work
performance of the female workers.
The results further reveal that the worker's performance is positively
related to his work ethic and attitudes towards mastery and competi-
tiveness. In the industrial management of Bangladesh, a major error has
been the over-simplification of the causes of work effort. Too often, it
has been assumed that the primary cause of work performance is to
earn money. But the results of the present study do not support this
assumption. The results, on the other hand, suggest that work ethic,
attitudes towards mastery and competitiveness have significant impact
on work effort.
It is difficult to suggest any definite measure for increasing workers'
performance on the basis of the results of the present study because the
generality of the findings is limited for the smaller number of subjects
employed. Nevertheless, the results indicate the importance of workers'
values, attitudes and motivation in boosting up work performance for
enhancing national economic growth.

NOTE

* The abstract of the paper was published in the Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Social Values and Effective Organizations, Talpei, Talwan, November
26--30, 1988.
 I N D U S T R I A L WORKERS IN B A N G L A D E S H 195

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Department of Psychology,
Universityof Dhaha,
Dhaha- l O00,
Bangladesh.