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Lesson 4
ATTITUDES, VALUES, AND ETHICS

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the importance of attitudes and emotions to behavior in organizations.

2. Describe how organizational citizenship behavior contributes to individual and

organizational effectiveness.

3. Summarize why values are an important part of organizational behavior.

4. Describe three ethical decision-making criteria, along with several explanations for the
existence of ethical problems.

5. Describe the eight-step guide to ethical decision making.

6. Describe what organizations can do to enhance ethical and socially responsible behavior.

I. ATTITUDES AND EMOTIONS

An attitude is a predisposition to respond that exerts an influence on a persons response to a
person, thing, idea, or situation. Attitudes are linked with perception, learning, and motivation.

A. Components of Attitudes
The cognitive component refers to the knowledge or intellectual beliefs an individual might
have about an object. The feeling or affective component refers to the emotion connected
with that object. The behavioral component refers to how a person acts. All three
components are interrelated. People search for consistency among the components of an
attitude. Cognitive dissonance is the situation in which the pieces of knowledge,
information, attitudes, or beliefs held by an individual are contradictory. People search for
ways to reduce internal conflicts when they experience a clash between the information they
receive and their actions or attitudes.

B. Emotions in the Workplace

Despite the emphasis on rational decision making, the importance of emotion in influencing
job behavior has long been recognized, such as dealing with angry employees or customers.
An emotion is a feeling such as anger, fear, joy, or surprise that underlies behavior. An
emotion consists of three interacting components: (1) internal physiological arousal, (2)
expressive behavior in the face or body, and (3) a cognitive appraisal.
1. Managing Emotion. To manage emotion well, managers should create a friendly
emotional climate by setting a positive example, including serving as a model of healthy
emotional expression. Managers might also include a positive attitude as one factor in
selecting individuals and teams
2. Emotional Labor and Dissonance. Recent attention has been paid to the problem of
faking emotion. Emotional labor is the process of regulating both feelings and
expressions to meet organizational goals. Surface acting means faking expressions such
as smiling, whereas deep acting involves controlling feelings, whereas deep acting
involves controlling feelings. Emotional dissonance is the mismatch between felt and
expressed emotions. The greater the emotional dissonance, the more the exhaustion, job
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dissatisfaction, and cynicism toward customers. A variation of emotional labor can occur
when workers create a faade in relation to conforming to corporate values.

C. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Attitudes are linked to job satisfaction, the amount of pleasure or contentment associated
with a job. Workers will have high job satisfaction when they have positive attitudes toward
such job factors as the work itself, recognition, and the opportunity for advancement. The
2004 Job Satisfaction Survey provides a useful sampling of issues that influence employee
satisfaction. A practical view of job satisfaction is that it centers on employees having fun on
the job. Among the consequences of high job satisfaction are:
High productivity when the work involves people contact
Loyalty to the company (important because of employee retention)
A stronger tendency to achieve customer loyalty
Low absenteeism and turnover
Less job stress and burnout
Better safety performance
Better life satisfaction

High job satisfaction is correlated with high organizational performance. However, an

analysis of 35 companies over 8 years suggests that high organizational performance leads to
satisfaction rather than vice verse. Yet, good organizational performance alone cannot sustain
job satisfaction.

D. Organizational Citizenship Behavior

A broader consequence of job satisfaction is that it contributes to organizational citizenship
behavior, or the willingness to work for the good of the organization even without the
promise of a specific reward. Five key components of organizational citizenship behavior are
conscientiousness, altruism, civic virtue, courtesy, and sportsmanship. The good
organizational citizen engages in extrarole behavior.

Personality factors are sometimes linked to OCB. Workers may be predisposed to being
good, or poor, organizational citizens. A study showed that the employee-disposition factors
of service orientation and empathy are related to engaging in good organizational citizenship
behavior in relation to customers. Strong organizational citizens are less likely to quit, as
shown by a study in China.

A concern about the concept of OCB is that some employees think that extrarole behavior is
part of their job (in-role behavior). Also, being an exceptional organizational citizen may
have negative consequences for the individual, such as experiencing more stress and work-
family conflict.
II. VALUES
Another key factor influencing behavior in organizations is the values and beliefs of people. A
value refers to the importance a person attaches to something that serves as a guide to action.
The topic of values has received much publicity in recent years, as Baby Boomers are compared
to younger people, Generation X, and Generation Y. With Baby Boomers being more
conservative and respectful of authority and hierarchy, the differences in values between the
generations can cause job conflict. A class discussion might be held about the validity of the
stereotypes presented in Exhibit 4-3.

A. How Values Are Learned

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Values are learned in the process of growing up, and many values are learned by age 4.
Values are also learned through modeling, and through the communication of attitudes (such
as hearing about them). Unstated, but implied, attitudes may also shape ones values.
Religion is another source of values.

B. Clarifying Values
Value-clarification exercises ask people to compare the relative importance they attach to
different objects and activities. (See the related Self-Assessment.)

C. The Mesh Between Individual and Organizational Values

When congruence exists between the values of the person and job or organization, job
performance is likely to be higher. Not every business firm claiming to have high values
carries them out in practice. When the demands made by the organization or manager clash
with the basic values of the individual, that person suffers from person-role conflict.

III. ETHICS
Ethics is the moral choices a person makes, and what he or she should do. Ethics can also be
regarded as the vehicle that converts values into action. You might value a clean environment,
and the corresponding ethical behavior is to not place a personal computer in a landfill.

A. Ethical Decision-Making Criteria

A standard way of understanding ethical decision-making is to understand the philosophical
basis for making these decisions.
1. Focus on consequences. According to this criterion, if nobody gets hurt, the decision is
ethical. Focusing on consequences is often referred to as utilitarian.
2. Focus on the rights of individuals. The theories underlying this approach are referred to
as deontological from the Greek work deon, or duty. A fundamental idea of deontology
is that equal respect must be given all individuals.
3. Focus on integrity (virtue ethics). If the person in question has good character, and
genuine motivation and intentions, he or she is behaving ethically. The decision makers
environment, or community, helps define what integrity means.

Trustworthiness has emerged as a virtue of major importance for managers and professionals
in recent years because of well-publicized untrustworthy executives. The term Enron has
become almost synonymous with untrustworthy behavior. Trust improves organizational
effectiveness. Two major contributors to trust are consistent behavior and clear
communications.

The decision makers environment, or community, helps define what integrity means.
Professional and business societies have codes of ethics that help define the virtue ethics of
members.
B. Major Causes of Ethical Problems
An individuals greed and gluttony is a major contributor to unethical behavior. Another key
contributor to ethics and morality is a persons level of moral development. At the pre-
conventional level, a person is concerned primarily with receiving external rewards and
avoiding punishment. At the conventional level, people conform to the expectations of good
behavior as defined by key people in their environment and societal norms. At the post-
conventional level, people are guided by an internalized set of principles based on universal,
abstract principles that my even transcend the laws of a particular society.
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Another major contributor to unethical behavior is an organizational atmosphere that

condones such behavior. The risk-taking culture at Enron is said to have contributed to the
firm engaging in questionable financial transactions. Unethical behavior is often triggered by
pressure from higher management to achieve goals. The strength of the relationship among
people also influences ethics. Strong ties lead to ethical behavior.

C. An Eight-Step Guide to Ethical Decision Making

We feature the ethical decision-making guided developed by Linda Trevio and Katherine
Nelson.
1. Gather the facts.
2. Define the ethical issues. (The issues may be more complicated than first glance
suggests.)
3. Identify the affected parties. (Major corporate decisions can affect thousands of people.)
consequences.)
5. Identify the obligations. (To whom are you obliged?)
6. Consider your character and integrity. (How would relevant people judge you if you
acted in a particular way?)
7. Think creatively about your potential actions. (Stretch your imagination to invent several
options rather than thinking you have only two choicesto do or not to do something.)
8. Check your intuition. (How does the contemplated decision feel, taste, and smell?)

Another type of decision that often requires an ethical test is choosing between two rights
rather than between right versus wrong). These situations are referred to as defining
moments, because such decisions over time form the basis of a persons character.

D. Organizational Approaches to Enhancing Ethical and Socially Responsible Behavior

Top-level managers, assisted by other managers and professionals, can develop strategies
and programs to enhance ethical and socially responsible behavior. Social responsibility is
the idea that firms have obligations to society beyond their economic obligations to owners
or stockholder and also beyond those prescribed by law or contract. Several initiatives
follow.

1. Leadership by Example and Establishing an Ethical Culture. Corporate leaders can

behave ethically and socially responsibly themselves to serve as models. Leadership by
example contributes to an ethical culture.
2. Written Codes of Ethical Conduct. Many organizations use written codes of conduct as
guidelines for ethical and socially responsible behavior.
3. Formal Mechanisms for Dealing with Ethical Problems. Large organizations frequently
establish ethics committees to help ensure ethical and socially responsible behavior.
4. Accepting Whistle Blowers. A whistle blower is an employee who exposes organi-
zational wrongdoing to parties who can take action. Whistle blowers are often ostracized
and humiliated by the companies they hope to improve, such as blocking future
promotions and giving them poor performance evaluations.
5. Training in Ethics and Social Responsibility. Many companies train managerial workers
about ethics.
6. Awareness of Cross-Cultural Influences on Ethics. Countries vary in what they consider
to be ethical and socially responsible behavior. Of note, bribes to foreign countries are
often reclassified as offsets in the armaments industry. An offset is presenting a lavish
package to a foreign government for the right to do business in their country, including
helping the country sell products in the United States.
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E. Financial Consequences of Being Ethical and Socially Responsible

Research suggests that high ethics and social responsibility are related to good financial
performance. One study found that the overall financial performance of a list of the 100 Best
Firms was significantly better than the remaining companies in the S & P 500. The virtuous
cycle (corporate social performance and financial performance feed and reinforce each other)
is illuminating. Financial success creates enough money left over to invest in corporate
social performance, leading to better financial performance. Being ethical also helps avoid
the costs of paying huge fines for being unethical.

IV. IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERIAL PRACTICE

Recognize emotion in the workplace as a potentially constructive force. An important
interpersonal skill in the workplace is to recognize both generational and individual values, and
then make some concession to satisfying the reasonable job demands stemming from these
values. Use the eight-step guide for ethical decision making when faced with a major decision.