Values, Attitudes, and Diversity in the Workplace

3-1

Chapter 3:

Values, Attitudes, and Diversity in the Workplace

Organizational

Behaviour

5th

Canadian Edition

Langton / Robbins / Judge

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education

Canada

3-2 Langton, Robbins and Judge, Organizational Behaviour, Fifth Cdn. Ed.

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada

Chapter Outline

• Values

• Assessing Cultural Values

• Values in the Canadian Workplace

• Attitudes

• Managing Diversity in the Workplace



Values, Attitudes, and Their Effects

in the Workplace

1. What are values?

2. How can we understand values across cultures?

3. Are there unique Canadian values?

4. What are attitudes and why are they important?

5. How do we respond to diversity in the workplace?



Values

• Values

– Concepts or beliefs that guide how we make decisions

about and evaluations of behaviours and events.

• Two frameworks for understanding values

– Milton Rokeach’s value survey

– Kent Hodgson’s general moral principles



Rokeach Value Survey

• 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.



Exhibit 3-1 Terminal and Instrumental

Values in Rokeach Value Survey



Exhibit 3-2 Value Ranking of Executives,

Union Members, and Activists (Top Five Only)



Ethical Values

• 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.



The Magnificent Seven Principles

• Kent Hodgson identified seven principles:

1. Dignity of human life

2. Autonomy

3. Honesty

4. Loyalty

5. Fairness

6. Humaneness

7. The common good



Hofstede’s Framework for Assessing

Culture

• Power Distance

• Individualism vs. Collectivism

• Masculinity vs. Femininity

• Uncertainty Avoidance

• Long Term vs. Short Term Orientation



Exhibit 3-3 Hofstede’s Cultural

Values By Nation



Values in the Canadian Workplace

• Generational Differences

• Cultural Differences



Generational Differences

• The Elders (those over 60)

– Core values: Belief in order, authority, discipline, and the Golden Rule

• Baby Boomers (born mid-1940s to mid-1960s) – Autonomous rebels, anxious communitarians, connected

enthusiasts, disengaged Darwinists

• Generation X (born mid-1960s to early 1980s)

– Thrill-seeking materialists, aimless dependents, social hedonists, new Aquarians, autonomous post-materialists

• The Ne(x)t Generation (born between 1977 and 1997)

– “High expectations; seek meaning in their work

– Tend to be questioning, socially conscious and entrepreneurial.



Cultural Differences

• 2006 immigrant population

– 46 percent of Toronto’s population

– 40 percent of Vancouver’s

– 21 percent of Montreal’s

• 2006 Census findings on language

– 20.1 percent spoke neither English nor French as their

first language. Of these:

• Largest majority spoke Chinese (either Mandarin or

Cantonese)

• Followed by Italian, German, Punjabi, and Spanish



Exhibit 3-4 Canadian and American

Value Differences



Francophone and Anglophone

Values

• Francophone Values

– More collectivist or

group-oriented

– Greater need for

achievement

– Concerned with

interpersonal aspects

of workplace

– Value affiliation

• Anglophone Values

– Individualist or I-

centred

– More task-centred

– Take more risks

– Value autonomy



Aboriginal Values

• More collectivist in orientation

• More community-oriented

• Greater sense of family in the workplace

• Greater affiliation and loyalty

• Power distance lower than non-Aboriginal culture

• Greater emphasis on consensual decision-making



Asian Values

• North America

– Networked relations: based

on self-interest

– Relationships viewed with

immediate gains

– Enforcement relies on

institutional law

– Governed by guilt (internal

pressures on performance)

• East & Southeast Asia

– Guanxi relations: based on

reciprocation

– Relationships meant to be

long-term and enduring

– Enforcement relies on

personal power and

authority

– Governed by shame

(external pressures on

performance)



Attitudes

• Positive or negative feelings concerning objects,

people, or events.

• Attitudes are less stable than values.



Types of Attitudes

• Job Satisfaction

– An individual’s general attitude toward his or her job.

• Organizational Commitment

– A state in which an employee identifies with a

particular organization and its goals, and wishes to

maintain membership in the organization.



Canadian Job Satisfaction

• 40 percent of Canadians are very satisfied with their jobs.

– 47 percent of Americans are happy.

– 54 percent of Danish workers are happy.

• 40 percent of Canadians say

– They would not recommend their place of work.

– They never see any of the benefits of their company’s profitability.

– Red tape and bureaucracy are the biggest barriers to job

satisfaction.

• 55 percent of Canadians say they have too much to do.



What Causes Job Satisfaction?

• Key sources of Job Satisfaction

– Work itself, pay 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 and Individual

Performance

• Satisfaction affects:

– Individual productivity

– Organizational productivity

– Organizational citizenship behaviour

– Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction



How Employees Can Express

Dissatisfaction

• Exit

• Voice

• Loyalty

• Neglect

Source: Reprinted with permission from Journal of Applied Social Psychology 15 no. 1, p. 83. V. H. Winston and Sons, 360

South Beach Boulevard, Palm Beach, FL 33480. All rights reserved.

Exhibit 3-5 Responses to Job Dissatisfaction



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.



Organizational Commitment

• Three Types of Commitment

– Affective commitment

• An individual’s relationship to the organization.

– Normative commitment

• The obligation an individual feels to staying with

an organization.

– Continuance commitment

• An individual’s calculation that it is in his or her

best interest to stay with the organization based on

the perceived costs of leaving it.



Five Reasons Employees Commit

Themselves

• They are proud of [the company’s] aspirations, accomplishments, and legacy; they share its values.

• They know what each person is expected to do, how performance is measured, and why it matters.

• They are in control of their own destinies; they savour the high-risk, high-reward work environment.

• They are recognized mostly for the quality of their individual performance.

• They have fun and enjoy the supportive and highly interactive environment.



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



Managing Diversity in the Workplace

• Responses to Diversity Initiatives

• Cultural Intelligence

– The ability to understand someone’s unfamiliar and

ambiguous gestures in the same way as would people

from his or her culture.



Exhibit 3-6 Major Workforce Diversity

Categories

• Gender

• National Origin

• Age

• Disability

• Domestic

Partners

• Religion



Exhibit 3-7 Measuring Your Cultural

Intelligence



Cultural Intelligence Profiles

• According to Earley and Masakowski most

managers fall into the following cultural

intelligence profiles:

– Provincial

– Analyst

– Natural

– Ambassador

– Mimic

– Chameleon



Summary and Implications

1. What are Values? – Values guide how we make decisions about and evaluations of

behaviours and events.

2. How can we understand values across cultures? – Hofstede found that managers and employees vary on five value

dimensions of national culture. This insight is expanded on by his GLOBE program.

3. Are there unique Canadian values? – Canadian values are affected by both generational and cultural

factors.

4. What are attitudes and why are they important? – Attitudes are positive or negative feelings about objects, people,

or events. They affect the way people respond to situations.

5. How do we respond to diversity in the workplace? – Many organizations have introduced diversity training programs

to improve cultural awareness.

Documents

Values, Attitudes, and Diversity in the Workplace