ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVOUR

INTRODUCTION
Values defined in Organizational Behavior as the collective conceptions of what is
considered good, desirable, and proper or bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture. Thus,
values are collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper or bad,
undesirable, and improper in a culture.
“Values are socially approved desires and goals that are internalized through the process of
conditioning, learning or socialization and that become subjective preferences, standards,
and aspirations” - R.K. Mukherjee
 "Values are global beliefs that guide actions and judgement across a variety of situations"
According to Milton Rokeach
“A value is a belief that something is good and desirable”. According to M. Haralambos. (old
file)

Values and attitudes affect behaviour and can have a big impact on how much people are committed
to and engaged in their jobs. (5)

Values tend to be relatively stable and enduring. 4 Most of our values are formed in our early years
—with input from parents, teachers, friends, and others. As children, we are told that certain
behaviours or outcomes are always desirable or always undesirable. There are few grey areas. It is
this absolute or “black-or-white” learning of values that more or less ensures their stability and
endurance. (5)

Values:- Basic convictions 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.(6)

Value system:- A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity .(6)

Terminal values Goals that individuals would like to achieve during their lifetime.(6)

Instrumental values:- Preferable ways of behaving .(6)

Values express attributes of the reality surrounding us, regarding essential qualities like honesty,
integrity, openness seeing as main values. A value is a measure of worth or importance a person
attaches to something; our values are often reflected in the way we live our lives. For example: I
value my family or I value freedom of speech. Values can be considered in the same time objective
and subjective. The objective ones are referring to be physiologically determined while subjective
ones are different from culture to culture, from individual to other individual. These types of values
are in many cases aligned with the person’s beliefs, referring to ethical/moral values, social ones or
aesthetic ones. Values can be considered also being milestones for the right course of action or
outcome, and they can reflect one’s personality being capable to influence behaviour and attitudes.
Importance of Values

Values express attributes of the reality surrounding us, regarding essential qualities like honesty,
integrity, openness seen as main values. A value is a measure of worth or importance a person
attaches to something; our values are often reflected in the way we live our lives. Values can be
considered at the same time subjective. The objective ones refer to be physiologically determined
while subjective ones are different from culture to culture, from individual to other individual. These
types of values are in many cases aligned with the person’s beliefs, referring to ethical/moral values,
social ones or aesthetic ones. Values can be considered also being milestones for the right course of
action or outcome, and they can reflect one’s personality being capable of influencing behaviour and
attitudes. (old pdf)

Rokeach Value Survey (6)

Milton Rokeach created the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS), which consists of two sets of values, each
containing 18 individual value items. 5 One set, called terminal values, refers to desirable end-states
of existence. These are the goals that individuals would like to achieve during their lifetime. They
include

• A comfortable life (a prosperous life)

• An exciting life (a stimulating, active life)
• A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution)
• Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)
• Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict)
• Happiness (contentedness)

The other set, called instrumental values, refers to preferable ways of behaving, or means
for achieving the terminal values.
They include
• Ambitious (hard-working, aspiring)
• Broad-minded (open-minded)
• Capable (competent, effective)
• Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)
• Imaginative (daring, creative)
• Honest (sincere, truthful)

Values in the Canadian Workplace (6)

According to research, when individual values coincide with corporate values, the outcomes are
beneficial. Individuals who have a thorough awareness of the job requirements and the values of the
business adjust better to their positions and have higher levels of satisfaction and organisational
commitment. Furthermore, shared values between the employee and the organisation result in
more favourable work attitudes, fewer turnover, and higher productivity. The values of individuals
and organisations may not always coincide. Furthermore, individuals inside organisations might have
quite distinct ideals. A potential collision of values in the workplace is caused by two key factors:
generational differences and cultural differences. The charity industry has struggled to retain young
people and minorities, according to Organisational Behaviour in the Workplace.
Attitudes
Attitudes are evaluative statements either favourable or unfavourable about objects, people,
or events. It reflects how one feels about something. An attitude refers to our opinions,
beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment.
According to Krech- "Attitude is an enduring organization of involving of motivational,
emotional,perception and cognitive process with respect to some aspect of the individual
world " 
- "Attitude is a tendency or predisposition to evaluate an object or symbol of that object in a
certain way" - Katz
-"An attitude represent the cluster of beliefs, assessed feeling, and behavioral intentions
towards an object" - Lawrence
Attitudes are evaluative remarks about things, people, or events that can be positive or negative.
They indicate how we feel about something. When I say, "I like my job," I'm expressing how I feel
about my job. Specific attitudes are more likely to predict specific behaviours, whereas generic
attitudes predict broad behaviours. For example, asking an employee if she plans to stay with the
company for the next six months is more likely to forecast turnover than asking her how satisfied she
is with her job. Overall job satisfaction, on the other hand, would better predict general behaviour,
such as whether the employee is engaged in her work or motivated to contribute to her firm.
Attitudes are important in business because they impact work performance. Employees may believe
that their supervisors, auditors and managers are all conspiring to make them work longer hours for
less pay. When an employee is asked to stay late and assist on a specific project, it may result in a
negative attitude toward management. Employees may also be negatively impacted by the opinions
of their coworkers or clients. Although a person might have millions of attitudes, OB focuses on a
certain set of work-related attitudes. Work satisfaction, organisational commitment, job
involvement, and employee engagement are the four primary attitudes that determine
organisational performance. (Values, Attitudes, and Their 3 Effects in the
Workplace)

Importance of values

Attitudes are the reactions that individuals have to other people's actions and external conditions, as
well as the behaviours that people have learnt as a result of their beliefs and values. Our attitude can
be reflected in how we respond to events and our behaviour. We may, however, regulate our
behaviour in ways that do not represent our ideas and values. To accept a different culture and
behaviours as a successful manager, we must change our behaviour in a good way. An attitude is the
way a person communicates or applies their views and ideals via words and behaviour. For example,
I feel quite outraged when I hear of cruelty, and I despise school. Attitude can also manifest as a
favourable or negative judgement of things, occurrences, actions, or ideas in one's surroundings.
According to experts, attitudes are most often the result of a learning process .Thus, theories such as
classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, and social learning have been used to explain the
creation of attitudes. As an individual grows, his or her perspectives may alter as a result of various
experiences. Another intriguing aspect is the fact that there are individuals that maintain specific
opinions over time. According to Daniel Katz, attitudes can fulfil instrumental or utilitarian, ego-
defensive, value-expressive, or knowledge purposes. When considering the process of altering
attitudes, we must evaluate the functions that an attitude might serve for a certain person.( old pdf)

Thus, attitudes have been classified into four different groups taking account of their functionality
(Daniel Katz, 1960):

• Utilitarian: useful from the point of view of defining ways that people want to avoid certain things
• Knowledge: used by anyone to organize and interpret new information acquired

• Ego defensive: used to protect self-esteem of individuals

• Value–expressive: generally used for expressing values and beliefs essential for individuals

Taking account of various social roles that individuals can have, every one of them will be attracted
by the ones that have the same core values and beliefs. It is clear harmonising our value systems is
what makes a successful relationship, be it personal, educational or professional our beliefs, values
and attitudes are constantly interfacing with those of others as we can see in the figure above. Still
there is a difference between beliefs, values and attitude however they are all linked. Our beliefs and
values can have an impact on our attitude and adjust our behaviour in situations.

(IMPORTANCE OF BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND VALUES IN THE FRAME OF HUMAN RESOURCE

MOTIVATION)
Refrences:
1. Sikula, A. F. (1973). The values and value systems of industrial personnel managers. Public
Personnel Management, 2(4), 305-309.
2. Aswathappa, K., & Reddy, G. S. (2009). Organisational behaviour (Vol. 20). Mumbai:
Himalaya Publishing House.Huang, C., & Lo, R. (2014).
3. Perceptions, attitudes, and needs of undergraduate student towards career in the hospitality
industry: An example from the undergraduate students in Taiwan Shoufu University. Journal
of International Management Studies, 9(2), 20-32.Organisational Behaviour Twelfth Revised
Edition2016.
4. http://www.pearsoncanada.ca/media/highered-showcase/multi-product-showcase/showcase-
websites-4q-2012/M03_LANG1160_05_SE_C03.pdf
5. Alas, R., & Vadi, M. (2006). The impact of organisational culture on organisational learning
and attitudes concerning change from an institutional perspective. International Journal of
Strategic Change Management, 1(1-2), 155-170.