CH-9-10 Employee Attitudes and Their Effects – Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 9 to 10 Chapter 9 Employee Attitudes and Their Effects Chapter Overview This chapter provides an understanding of employee attitudes toward their jobs; ways to obtain information about those attitudes; and how to use this information toward employees’ work, their organization, and their careers. Included here are the topics of job satisfaction and its importance, level of job satisfaction, and source of satisfaction. Also, job involvement and organizational commitment are presented. Next, effects of employee attitudes are explored. The next major section is devoted to a detailed discussion on studying job satisfaction. The final part of the chapter deals with job satisfaction survey design and follow-up, and changing employee attitudes. Chapter Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, students should understand: 1. The nature of attitudes and job satisfaction 2. The relationship between performance and satisfaction 3. Job involvement and organizational commitment 4. Some positive and negative effects of employee attitudes 5. Organizational citizenship behaviors 6. Benefits of studying employee attitudes 7. Design and use of job satisfaction surveys Discussion and Project Ideas • Have the students conduct a small job satisfaction survey and report it to class. Appoint a group of five to plan and administer the survey to a small work group of ten to twenty-five persons, such as the college bookstore, an office, or wherever students have contacts. To keep the assignment within limits, have them survey only one or two subject areas, such as relationships with fellow workers, satisfaction with working conditions, or supervisory relations. The students should then report their analysis and experiences to the class. Their report should include a proposal for data feedback and action planning based on the survey results. • Before discussing the levels of general job satisfaction in class, take a poll by a show of hands and ask how many people in class believe that ___________ of the people in this country are generally satisfied with their jobs. o more than 75 percent o more than 50 percent o more than 25 percent o less than 25 percent. Past experience indicates that most students vote for the 25 percent or 50 percent levels, believing job satisfaction is far lower than the data indicate. Discuss the reasons for their estimates emphasizing: o The differences between their needs and the needs of workers “in general” o Possible selective perception by both themselves and the media o The nature of survey techniques used to generate the date, i.e., are workers reporting general satisfaction “really satisfied”? • An effective written assignment for advanced classes is to have each person develop a detailed plan for a complete job satisfaction survey of a designated small company. This plan should include: o A sample survey questionnaire or interview; o Details of how the questionnaire or interviews will be administered o Examples of how the data will be tabulated and analyzed o Plans for feedback to management and employees o A description of methods to facilitate the use of the data for constructive action planning. • How many students in the class have a used an intranet? What information was included on the site? Do employees find it useful? Does management ever use it for surveys and communicating idea or results to employees? Lecture Outline Introduction • Negative attitudes among employees are: o A symptom of underlying problems o A contributing cause of forthcoming difficulties • Declining attitudes may result in strikes, work slowdowns, absences, and employee turnovers. • The organizational costs associated with poor employee attitudes may severely reduce an organization’s competitiveness. • Employee satisfaction, along with high productivity, is a hallmark of a well-managed organization. • A key challenge is dealing with employees who increasingly expect to have concern shown for their attitudes and feelings as well as to receive rewards and recognition. • Some employees even develop an attitude of entitlement—a belief that they deserve things because society owes it to them. The Nature of Employee Attitudes • Attitudes are the feelings and beliefs that largely determine how employees will: o Perceive their environment o Commit themselves to intended actions o Ultimately behave • Managers are vitally interested in the nature of the attitudes of their employees toward: o Their jobs o Their careers o The organization itself • Attitudes affect perceptions, and perceptions affect attitudes • People differ in their personal dispositions as they enter organizations. o People with positive affectivity are optimistic, upbeat, cheerful, and courteous. o People with negative affectivity are pessimistic, downbeat, irritable, and even abrasive. • Even though happiness may predispose some employees to also have positive attitudes on the job, it is important to explore the nature and effects of job satisfaction. Job Satisfaction • Elements o Job satisfaction is a set of favorable or unfavorable feelings and emotions, with which employees view their work. o Job satisfaction is an affective attitude—a feeling of relative like or dislike toward something. o These job-related feelings of satisfaction are very different from the two other elements of employee attitudes. o An employee may have an intellectual response to her work, stating an objective thought (belief).  On other occasions employees may voice her behavioral intentions to a co-worker. o Attitudes, then, consist of feelings, thoughts, and intentions to act • Individual Focus o Job satisfaction typically refers to the attitudes of a single employee.  The general term used for overall group satisfaction is morale. o Group morale is especially important to monitor since individuals often take their social cues from their work associates.  They adapt their own attitudes to conform to those of the group. • Overall or Multidimensional? o Job satisfaction can be viewed as an overall attitude, or it can apply to the various parts of an individual’s job.  If it is viewed only as an overall attitude, managers may miss seeing some key hidden exceptions as they assess an employee’s overall satisfaction.  For example, a worker may be very satisfied with his promotion but unhappy with the vacation schedule for the year.  Job-related attitudes predispose an employee to behave in certain ways. o Important aspects of job satisfaction include:  Pay  One’s supervisor  The nature of the tasks performed  An employee’s coworkers or team  The immediate working conditions o Because job satisfaction is multidimensional, managers are cautioned not to allow an employee’s high satisfaction on one element offset high dissatisfaction on another by arithmetically blending both feelings into an average rating.  The studies may divide their attention between those elements that are directly related to job content and those that are part of job context.  Job content refers to the nature of the job, whereas, job context refers to the supervisor, co-workers, and organization. • Stability of Job Satisfaction o Attitudes are generally acquired over a long period of time.  Job satisfaction or dissatisfaction emerges as an employee gains more information about the workplace. o Job satisfaction is dynamic, for it can decline even more quickly than it develops.  Managers cannot establish conditions leading to high satisfaction now and then later neglect it, for employee needs and viewpoints may fluctuate suddenly. • Environmental Impact o The nature of a worker’s environment off the job indirectly influences his or her feelings on the job.  Similarly, since job is an important part of life for many workers, job satisfaction influences general life satisfaction.  The result is a spillover effect that occurs in both directions between job and life satisfaction (Figure 9.1). • Importance o Managers must be alert to subtle clues about employee satisfaction levels.  It is important to apply knowledge of organizational behavior to build better organizations; this way both individuals and society benefit. o Additional perspectives on the issue revolves around several critical questions such as:  Is there room for improvement?  Which employees are currently the most dissatisfied?  What other attitudes besides job satisfaction should be studied?  What are the effects of negative employee attitudes?  How can information about attitudes be gained?  How can knowledge of employee attitudes be used constructively? • Level of Job Satisfaction o Job satisfaction has been historically high and stable in the United States.  Although worker expectations have both increased and changed in their focus over time, quality of management practices also has improved.  However, only 50 percent of those currently in the workforce report they are reasonably satisfied with their job.  And, many who report satisfaction have simply resigned themselves to their work situations, with the result that they are neither strongly satisfied, nor highly dissatisfied. o The level of job satisfaction across groups is not always the same, but is related to a number of variables.  Key variables revolve around age, occupational level, and organizational size. o As workers grow older, they initially tend to be slightly more satisfied with their jobs. o People with higher-level occupations tend to be more satisfied with their jobs.  They are usually better paid, have better working conditions, and hold jobs that make fuller use of their abilities. o Evidence suggests that levels of job satisfaction are higher in smaller organizations.  Larger organizations tend to overwhelm people, disrupt supportive processes, and limit personal closeness, friendship, and small-group teamwork that are important aspects of job satisfaction for many people. Job Involvement • Job involvement is the degree to which employees immerse themselves in their jobs, invest time and energy in them, and view work as a central part of their overall lives. o Holding meaningful jobs and performing them well are important aspects of their own self-image.  This helps explain the traumatic effects of job loss on their esteem needs when they are laid off or fired. • Job-involved employees are likely to: o Believe in the work ethic o Exhibit high growth needs o Enjoy participation in decision making • Job involvement is similar to organizational identification, in which employees blend in so well and fit the organization’s ethics and expectation that they experience a sense of oneness with the firm. Organizational Commitment • Organizational commitment (employee loyalty) is the degree to which an employee identifies with the organization and wants to continue actively participating in it. o It is a measure of the employee’s willingness to remain with a firm in the future. • Commitment is usually stronger among: o Longer-term employees o Those who have experienced personal success in the organization o Those who have passed major hurdles to successful entry o Those working within a committed group • It is useful to distinguish between three forms of organizational commitment. o Affective commitment is a positive emotional state in which employees want to exert effort and choose to remain with the organization. o Normative commitment is the choice to stay attached because of strong cultural or familial ethics that drive them to do so. o Continuance commitment encourages employees to stay because of their high “investments” in the organization (time and effort) and the economic and social losses they would incur if they left. • Organizationally committed employees will usually: o Have good attendance records o Demonstrate a willing adherence to company policies o Have lower turnover rates • Ways to increase and decrease commitment are presented in Figure 9.2. Work Moods • Attitudes are emotional states that are typically stable across time and focused on a particular element of one’s job. • Employees also have feelings about their job that are both diffused and highly dynamic; they reflect overall views and can change within a day, hour, or minute. o These variable attitudes that employees have toward their jobs are called work moods. • An employee’s work mood can be described as ranging from negative to positive and from weak to strong and intense. o Positive moods produce energy, passion, vitality, and enthusiasm. o This results in better customer service, lower absenteeism, greater creativity, and interpersonal cooperation. • Work moods are directly affected by managerial actions such as: o Sharing praise o Creating an atmosphere filled with occasional fun, humor, and levity o Providing a workplace filled with pleasant surroundings o Engaging in and encouraging a reasonable amount of social interaction Employee Engagement • Employee engagement is demonstrated substantially when some employees exhibit a high degree of job satisfaction and involvement, are committed to their firm’s mission, and have generally upbeat work moods. o Such employees:  Honestly care about the organization’s success  Have a strong bond to their employer  Voluntarily commit their energy, time, and effort to helping the organization perform well  Receive intrinsic satisfaction from their work  Identify with the organization  Work passionately toward team goals  Have safety records which are remarkably better • Following are some methods that managers can use to stimulate and reinforce employee engagement: o Effective communication (frequent, candid, thorough, understandable) o Clear job expectations o Inspirational leadership, reflecting appropriate values o Positive relationships with one’s supervisor o Regular feedback and recognition Effects of Employee Attitudes • Attitudes are good predictors of behaviors as they provide clues to an employee’s behavioral intentions or inclinations to act in a certain way. o Positive attitudes help predict constructive behaviors. o Negative attitudes help predict undesirable behaviors. • Employees who are dissatisfied with their jobs, lack job involvement, are low in organizational commitment, and have strongly negative moods. o These results are especially likely if the feelings are both strong and persistent. • Dissatisfied employees may engage in: o Psychological withdrawal (e.g., daydreaming on the job). o Physical withdrawal (e.g., unauthorized absences, early departures, extended breaks, or work slowdowns). o Overt acts of aggression and retaliation of presumed wrongs. • A popular way to classify predictable employee responses to dissatisfaction, originally proposed by Albert Hirschman, is shown in Figure 9.4. • At their extreme, employees may react in a constructive or destructive manner, and may also do this either passively or actively. • Four simplified characterizations of employee responses are: o Exit (voluntary departure) o Voice (constructive criticism of disliked policies) o Loyalty (remaining in the organization but not being verbal about problems) o Neglect (being passively destructive). • Satisfied employees are likely to o Provide acts of customer service beyond the call of duty o Have sparkling work records o Actively pursue excellence in all areas of their jobs Employee Performance • Some managers cling to the myth that high satisfaction always leads to high employee performance. o This assumption is not correct. • Satisfied workers actually may be high, average, or even low producers and they will tend to continue the level of performance that previously brought them satisfaction (according to the behavior modification model). • A more accurate statement of the causal relationship is both counterintuitive and precisely the reverse of the classic misbelieve. o High performance contributes to high job satisfaction.  As shown in figure 9.4, better performance typically leads to higher economic, sociological, and psychological rewards. o The level of satisfaction leads to either greater or lesser commitment, which then affects effort and eventually (and perhaps indirectly) affects performance; the result is a continuously operating performance-satisfaction-effort loop. o Management should devote its efforts to aiding and facilitating employee performance, which can produce satisfaction and commitment as a by-product. • If performance is low employees might not receive the rewards and recognition they were hoping for, and dissatisfaction can result. o Dissatisfaction among employees may lead to negative behaviors such as:  Turnover  Absenteeism and tardiness  Theft  Violence  Poor organizational citizenship Turnover • Higher job satisfaction is associated with lower employee turnover. • Turnover is the proportion of employees leaving an organization during a given time period (usually one year). • Satisfied employees are less likely to think about quitting or announce their intention to quit. • Employees with lower satisfaction are more likely to: o Have higher rates of turnover o Lack self-fulfillment o Receive little recognition on the job o Not feel valued o Experience continual conflicts with a supervisor or peer o Have reached a personal plateau in their career • Excessive employee turnover can have several negative effects on an organization; they include: o Separation costs (exit interview time, separation pay, unemployment tax increase) o Training costs for new employees (both orientation and skill-development instruction; both formal and informal learning experiences) o Vacancy costs (temporary help or overtime pay; productivity loss and service disruption) o Replacement costs (attracting, screening, and relocating new hires) o Morale effects (loss of friendships; concerns about personal job loss during downsizings) • Some benefits of turnover: are as follows o More opportunities for internal promotion o Welcomed removal of disruptive employees o Infusion of expertise from newly hired employees • Managers should look beyond overall turnover rates and examine instead the functionality of each departure. • This is an extremely critical analytical issue during downsizing (Figure 9.6). o The best approach is a preventive one. • Employers with lower turnover: o Clarify job expectations o Socialize employees about norms for their behavior o Watch for early signs of dissatisfaction o Provide opportunities for employees to excel and use their talents o Offer recognition and praise regularly o Make sure that each employee feels cared for as a person Absences and Tardiness • Employees with low job satisfaction tend to be absent more often. • The connection is not always sharp, for a couple of reasons. o Some (involuntary) absences are caused by legitimate medical (sickness or injury) or personal (jury duty or sick children) reasons; therefore a satisfied employee may have a valid absence. o Dissatisfied employees do not necessarily plan to be absent, but they seem to find it easier to respond to the opportunities to do so on a spontaneous basis. • Voluntary (attitudinal) absences occur more often among a certain cluster of employees and usually happen on Mondays or Fridays. o Whereas involuntary (medically related) absenteeism can sometimes be predicted (e.g., for surgery) and often be reduced through the use of more thorough preemployment physical exams and work-history record checks.  Different approaches are needed for absences caused by poor attitudes. • The connection between satisfaction and absences/tardiness is not always sharp. o Absences may also be caused by legitimate reasons. o Dissatisfied employees do not necessarily plan to be absent; they just find it easier to find reasons to do so. • Some employers place all of an employee’s accrued time off into a paid leave bank of usable days, also known as paid time off. o Vacation time, sick leave, holidays, and personal days all enter the bank, and the employee can use the days for any reason. o This approach gives the employee greater control over they days they take off and the employer gains greater predictability of those occasions. • Employees can also exhibit their dissatisfaction with job conditions through tardiness. o Tardiness is a type of short-period absenteeism that can range from a few minutes to several hours for each event, and it is another way in which employees physically withdraw from active involvement in the organization. o It may impede timely completion of work and disrupt productive relationships with co-workers. o Although there may be legitimate reasons for an occasional tardy arrival, a pattern of tardiness is often a symptom of negative attitudes requiring managerial attention. • Presenteeism occurs when employees come to work despite troublesome (and often recurring) physical and emotional health conditions that substantially affect their work performance. o Presenteeism is a unique but rather widespread phenomenon—it is far harder to assess than absenteeism and it can reduce a worker’s productivity by 33 percent or more. o It is caused by management placing too much emphasis on lowering absenteeism rates. • Common (physical) factors in presenteeism include: o Migraine headaches o Acid reflux disease o Flu o Depression o Lower back pain o Arthritis o Sinus trouble or allergies (most prevalent factor) • Methods to resolve presenteeism involves: o Management becoming aware (recognition and acceptance) of the existence and consequences of presenteeism. o Counseling employees to manage their ailments through better diagnosis and medical treatment. o Managers being empathetic and yet assertive enough to encourage employees to stay away from work on occasion when necessary. • The overall lesson is to have a reasonable goal for absenteeism rates, but not to push it to impossibly low levels. Theft • Theft is the unauthorized use or removal of company resources. o Acts of theft include such things as: o Using company services without authorization o Fraud • Although employee theft has many causes, some employees may steal because they feel exploited, overworked, or frustrated by the impersonal treatment they receive from their organization. o Employees may justify this unethical behavior as a way of reestablishing a perception of lost equity or even gaining revenge for what they considered ill treatment at the hands of a supervisor. • Tighter organizational controls or incentive systems do not always solve theft problems. o They are directed at the symptoms rather than the underlying causes, such as severe dissatisfaction. • Employee theft is part of a much broader ethical problem in organizations that involves rule-bending. o Employees who intentionally twist organizational policies to obtain personal gain argue that it is necessary to achieve their demanding performance goals, or that the rules themselves are faulty, or society condones it (Figure 9.7). Violence • Violence—various forms of verbal or physical aggression at work—is one of the most extreme (an unfortunate) consequences of employee dissatisfaction. o The source of violence can include co-workers, customers, and strangers. o Millions of workers are victims of workplace violence annually. o Many more live under the direct or perceived threat of harm. o The cost to U.S. businesses is an estimated $36 billion per year. o Work stress can be both a cause of violence and the aftermath of it. • Managers must increasingly be on the lookout for signs that employee dissatisfaction might turn into verbal or physical harm at work, and they must take appropriate and immediate preventive actions. Other Effects • Low productivity, turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, theft, and violence are all typically negative behaviors, for they harm the organization and sometimes its members. • Many employees hold positive attitudes toward their job and organization, and these pay off in both obvious and subtle ways. o Both individual employees and groups sometimes demonstrate organizational citizenship behaviors, which are discretionary and helpful actions above and beyond the call of duty that promote the organization’s success. • Organizational citizenship (also called prosocial behavior) is often marked by its spontaneity, its voluntary nature, its constructive impact on results, and its unexpected helpfulness or cooperativeness to others. o Research suggests that these “good soldiers engage in action for any of these three reasons:  Their personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness, optimism, or extroversion) dispose them to do so.  They hope that by doing so they will receive special recognition or rewards.  They are attempting to engage in image-enhancement through managing the impressions that others form of them. • Emotional Contagion o Emotional contagion refers to the automatic and often unconscious spread of attitudes and feelings from one person to another. o Employees perceive the statements, facial expressions, gestures, postures, and moods of others and often absorb them as their own; an emotional convergence develops. Two principles stand out in this regard:  Negative attitudes are more “catchy” than positive ones.  Strongly expressed attitudes (either positive or negative) are more contagious than others. Apparently, feelings expressed with high energy and emotion are more easily believed and embraced. o The significance of emotional contagion lies in the fact that employee attitudes are not just spread within a work group or organization, but they are potentially conveyed to outsiders—and most importantly to clients and customers. o Since customer satisfaction is a strong predictor of return business, managers are vitally interested in the effort (emotional labor) that employees expend to project positive emotions to those groups.  Unfortunately, this may require those employees to view themselves as actors who are playing a part (“faking it”) for their audience. This can drain their energy. Studying Job Satisfaction • Management needs information on employee job satisfaction in order to make sound decisions, in both preventing and solving employee problems. o A typical method is a job satisfaction survey also known as a morale, opinion, or attitude survey.  A job satisfaction survey is a procedure by which employees report their feelings toward their jobs and work environment. Individual responses are then combined and analyzed. Benefits of Job Satisfaction Studies • If job satisfaction studies are properly planned and administered, they produce a number of important benefits, both general and specific. • Monitoring Attitudes o Benefit of attitude studies include:  Gives management an indication of general levels of satisfaction  Indicates specific areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction  Identifies specific groups of dissatisfied employees  Identifies departments that are particularly affected  Indicates which parts of the jobs are generating dissatisfaction o The survey is potentially a powerful diagnostic instrument for assessing both broad employee problems and positive attitudes. • Additional Benefits o Other benefits of a job satisfaction survey include the following:  The flow of communication in all directions is improved as people plan the survey, take it, and discuss its results.  They can serve as a safety valve, or emotional release for people to get things off their chests (vent) and later feel better about them.  Training needs can be identified, as employees can report how well they feel their supervisor performs certain parts of the job.  They help managers plan and monitor new programs, by getting feedback on proposed changes in advance and then conducting a follow-up survey to evaluate the actual response. Use of Existing Job Satisfaction Information • Before conducting a formal job satisfaction survey, managers might fruitfully examine two other methods for learning about current employee feelings—daily contacts and existing data. o These approaches recognize that formal job satisfaction surveys are similar to an annual accounting audit in the sense that both are merely periodic activities; yet there is a day-to-day need to monitor job satisfaction just as there is a regular need to keep up with the financial accounts. • Management stays in touch with the level of employee satisfaction primarily through face-to-face contact and communication. o This is a practical, timely, and proven method of determining the job satisfaction level of individuals, but a number of other satisfaction indicators are already available in an organization. • Direct behavioral indicators of job satisfaction include: o Turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, and grievances • Indirect clues include: o Medical and training records, exit interviews, waste and scrap reports, and the level of employee activity in suggestion programs • Carefully interpreted, the data can provide a rich portrait of the satisfaction of workers in an organization. o The chief advantages of employee records:  In most cases they are already available  Many of them provide quantifiable data  They are a good measure of trends over a period of time Critical Issues • Job satisfaction survey procedures are more complicated than they appear to be at the first glance. o Careless errors in survey design can seriously limit the usefulness of a survey. • Reliability and validity serve as the backbone of any effective survey. o Reliability is the capacity of a survey instrument to produce consistent results, regardless of who administers it or when someone responded to it. o Validity is the capacity to measure what the survey claims to measure. Using Survey Information • Gathering survey information is chiefly a matter of technique. o Analysis and use of the resulting data requires skilled management judgment. o It is the final important step in a job satisfaction survey. o When appropriate action is taken, results can be excellent. • Communicating the Results o The first step in using job satisfaction information is to communicate results to all managers, so that they can understand it and prepare to use it. o The document is also known as a survey report. o Recommendations of job satisfaction specialists are helpful, but managers (with the participative input from employees) must make the final decisions. • Comparative Data o In larger organizations, comparisons among departments are an effective way to encourage managers to sit up and take note of satisfaction data. o Managers whose departments show low satisfaction will be spurred to improve their employees’ attitudes before the next survey. o This type of comparison must be handled skillfully, so lower performers do not feel intimidated. o If earlier surveys were made, trends over time can be plotted. o The managers’ interest in job satisfaction statistics are heightened by asking them to predict their subordinates’ attitudes toward various items and then compare them to actual survey results. • Committee Work Follow-up o One way to get managers to introduce change in their departments following a survey is to set up working committees (task forces) who are responsible for reviewing the survey data and developing plans for corrective action. o The long-run approach to using job satisfaction information is important.  Too many employers make the mistake of giving a survey immense publicity and interest for a few weeks and then forgetting about it until another survey is run. • Feedback to Employees o Details of what was learned and what action was taken should be shared with employees as soon as possible.  Only in this way will the people who participated feel management listened to them and took action on the basis of their ideas.  Providing feedback assures employees that their ideas really were wanted—and are wanted still. o If a job satisfaction survey is made, management should be prepared to take action on the results.  Employees feel that if they cooperate in stating their feelings, management should either make some of the improvements they suggest or at least explain why the changes are not feasible.  A sure way to close off future expressions of employee opinion is to fail to take action on opinions already given. Using the Company Intranet • Intranet is an in-house version of the internet, private computer networks, accessible only by employees of the organization. • Intranets are used for the following purposes: o For internal communications o To transmit secure documents o To facilitate collaboration among persons and teams with mutual interests • Intranet has been found to be a useful tool for transmitting attitude surveys and results as its widespread internal visibility provides a powerful incentive for managers to implement changes quickly. o Response rates are often improved over traditional paper-and-pencil formats, and the computer technology is typically Welcomed by younger members of the workforce. o Problems with multiple responses can be easily detected and controlled o Longer (richer) comments to open-end questions are often provided Changing Employee Attitudes • Inducing attitude shifts is not always easy, but the potential gains can make it worthwhile to try. • To change employee attitudes in a favorable direction, management should follow these guidelines: o Closely tie rewards to individual or team performance o Set challenging goals o Define clear expectations o Use active listening skills o Provide frequent feedback regarding performance o Show concern for employee feelings o Allow employees to participate in decision making o Encourage people by modeling and reinforcing attitude in others o Show appreciation for appropriate effort and citizenship behaviors Chapter 10 Issues between Organizations and Individuals Chapter Overview This chapter discusses some of the relationships of individuals to organizations, including rights of privacy, the individual and drug abuse, discipline, quality of work life, and individuals’ organizational responsibilities. First, issues about areas of legitimate organizational influence are presented, which is followed by rights of privacy and related issues. The next section deals with discipline and quality of work life. The final section deals with the individual’s responsibilities to the organization. Chapter Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, students should understand: 1. A model of legitimacy of organizational influence 2. How rights to privacy are interpreted 3. Bases for discrimination at work 4. Using discipline to change behaviors 5. Quality of Work Life (QWL) 6. Job enrichment: pros and cons 7. Mutual individual-organization responsibilities 8. Whistle-blowing as a prosocial behavior Discussion and Project Ideas Issues such as legitimacy of organizational influence and invasion of privacy are discussed in the beginning of the chapter. Discipline is a reflection of organizational climate, and lapses of discipline are enforced by disciplinary action. The discussion of discipline action at this point in the course offers further evidence that organizational behavior is not merely making people happy, whether they meet organizational standards or not. Disciplinary action is a necessary and accepted part of an organization’s social system. Finally, the chapter emphasizes that not only do organizations have responsibilities to individuals, but that individuals also have responsibilities to organizations. The exercises and assignments described below help to illustrate these key points. Traditional work design brought tremendous economic benefits to society, but its disadvantage was its high human costs. Better design of jobs and emphasis on the quality of work life seek to maintain reasonable economic efficiency while making jobs more human. Although job enrichment, as developed by Herzberg, originally meant the addition of more motivators to a job, concern with the job has now evolved into a perspective that emphasizes the total quality of work life within the work environment. • Divide the class into three groups—the organization; the informal work group; and the external community. Have each group present a list of behaviors and modes of dress resulting from pressures exerted by their respective groups. • Ask students to rate the university administration’s rights to discipline students (on a 1 to 5 scale) for the following behaviors: o Smoking pot in the dorm. o Copying from another paper during a test. o Giving test answers to a student in another section. o Public drunkenness at a local bar. o Stealing an automobile in another city. o Public drunkenness in the classroom. o Smoking pot in a public park. o Stealing an automobile on campus. o Buying a term paper from a professional writer. o Selling cosmetics on campus. o Smoking in the classroom. o Having sexual relations in their own dorm rooms. o Having sexual relations with another student while on vacation. To what extent do the results of your survey mirror the model of legitimacy presented in Figure 10.1? • Invite a local personnel officer from a private organization to discuss her or his company’s alcohol and drug abuse policies and programs. • Ask each student to write a one-half page description of a situation where he or she wishes to change the behavior of a work group. Divide the class into groups of four or five. Have the students in each group exchange their situations and choose one on which to implement job enrichment. • Emphasize the restructuring of the work according to the five core job dimensions described in the text. Have one member of each group report the group’s suggestions to the class. • Read the following case to the class: Hightower Business School has five major departments: Management, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, and Risk and Insurance. In order to maximize the use of secretarial time, the secretaries are arranged in a secretarial pool, with one of the secretaries designated as supervisor. All professors give their work directly to the secretarial supervisor, who then assigns it to one of the nine other secretaries. There appears to be a lot of dissatisfaction in the secretarial pool, even though the supervisor is well liked. Turnover is high, absenteeism is high, and the quality of work is extremely poor. The professors are also displeased. They say that the quality of work is extremely poor and important work is often put on low priority status and occasionally even last. The Dean of the College, however, defends the secretarial pool concept saying that it evens out the workload for the secretaries and reduces costs. Divide the class into work groups of four or five students and ask each group to analyze the case and provide suggestions for job enrichment. Their comments should focus on the five core job dimensions suggested in the book, and they should have specific suggestions for implementing these core dimensions. Lecture Outline Introduction • Individuals use organizations as instruments to achieve their goals just as much as organizations use people to reach objectives. o There is a mutual social transaction in which each contributes to, and benefits from, the other. Areas of Legitimate Organizational Influence • Every organization develops policies and requirements for performance. o If the organization and an individual define the boundaries of legitimate influence differently, conflict is likely to develop. • Following are sample areas of organizational influence and their probable legitimacy: o Job conduct (relatively high legitimacy of influence) o Personal activities off the job (low legitimacy of influence) A Model of Legitimacy of Organizational Influence • The simplified model of legitimacy of organizational influence that has been developed from research is shown in Figure 10.1. o The two key variables in the model are where it occurs (conduct on the job or off of it) and the degree of job-relatedness (conduct that is job-related or not job-related).  As the model shows, there is agreement on high legitimacy when conduct is both on the job and job-related.  Legitimacy becomes less accepted as an act’s connection with the job weakens.  If the act is on the job but not job-related, employer questions may arise about legitimacy.  Generally, only moderate legitimacy is supported, depending on the situation. Off-the-Job Conduct • The power of business to regulate employee conduct off the job is very limited. o The more job-related the conduct is when off the job, the more support there is for organizational influence on the employee. • Interpretations become more difficult in some borderline situations. o In the United States, the organization’s jurisdictional line is clearly functional, related to the total job system, not the property line. • Current issues involving job-related behaviors that receive extensive attention include the following: o Surveillance o Substance abuse o Genetic screening of prospective employees to identify health risks o Office romances o Assessments of ethical values of job applicants Rights of Privacy • Rights of privacy become contentious issues when an organization invades a person’s private life or makes an unauthorized release of confidential information about a person in a way that would cause emotional harm or suffering. • Business activities that may involve employee rights of privacy: o Lie detectors (polygraph tests) o Personality tests o Location trackers o Medical examinations o Treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse o Monitoring of employee lifestyles o Surveillance devices o Computer data banks o Confidential records o Genetic screening/biometric data o Inquiry into personal relationships • Areas that employees, customers, and others believe should not be subject to snooping and analysis: o Religious, political, and social beliefs o Personal acts, conversations, and locations, such as company rest rooms and private homes • Four conditions that lead to a perception of invasion of privacy: o Personal (versus performance) information o No permission obtained before disclosure o Unfavorable consequences o External disclosure (rather than inside the company) Policy Guidelines Relating to Privacy • Because of the importance of employee privacy, most large employers have developed policy guidelines to protect it. o These guidelines also help establish uniform practices and facilitate the handling of any unusual situations that may develop. • The following are some policy guidelines on privacy that organizations use: o Relevance—only necessary, useful information should be recorded and retained. o Recency—obsolete information should be removed periodically. o Notice—no personal data system unknown to an employee should be used. o Fiduciary duty—the keeper of the information is responsible for its security. o Confidentiality—information should be released only to those who have a need to know, and release outside the organization normally should occur only with the employee’s permission. o Due process—the employee should be able to examine records and challenge them if they appear incorrect. o Protection of the psyche—the employee’s inner self should not be invaded or exposed except with prior consent and for compelling reasons. Surveillance Devices • Except for compelling reasons, employers should avoid surveillance of private places, such as locker rooms, or secret surveillance, as with listening devices. • Surveillance that is known to employees and has a compelling job reason is seldom considered an undue privacy infringement. o Examples: Hidden cameras in banks and convenience stores. • Surveillance devices, equipment and procedures for monitoring employee actions, have emerged through advances in computer technology. o Electronic sensor badges are microcomputers in clip-on ID cards, which emit infrared signals. • Electronic monitoring takes many forms, including: o Automatic counting of keystrokes o Remote observations of the screens of desktop computer operators o Surreptitious reading of an employee’s electronic mail o Voice-record system to assess the effectiveness of stockbrokers, travel agents, or other customer service personnel • The availability of the Internet at work has resulted in a phenomenon known as cybersurfing. o It is an activity done by employees who use work time and work computers to surf the Web, looking for a wide range of information of personal interest. o Cyber surfers may use their terminal to check the stock market, get an update on a golf tournament, place a bid on a newly released product on eBay, etc. o Employers are using electronic monitoring to identify the most serious abusers of their Internet privileges—persons known as cyber loafers or cyberslackers. • Secret organizational monitoring can have a detrimental impact on employees. o Monitored employees have higher levels of physiological and emotional distress, such as headaches and emotional anxiety. • The keys to employee acceptance of electronic surveillance lie in: o Advance notification and explanation o Use of information as an aid to performance improvement o Involvement of employees in setting up a fair system • Employees (and future employees) need to be aware that some companies now use social screening (information gleaned from e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and LinkedIn) to probe for additional information prior to hiring (or firing) an employee. Honesty Testing • Employee theft is a major problem in U.S. businesses. o It is estimated to cost employers $50-100 billion per year, with up to three-fourths of employees participating at least once. • Honesty tests, also known as integrity tests, attempt to get the respondent to disclose information about his or her previous or prospective honesty. o They appear in two forms.  Overt tests inquire about attitudes towards theft.  Personality-based tests more indirectly identify dishonest individuals by relating scores on selected personality-test items to a theft criterion. • Validity of honesty test is controversial and employers run some risks of legal action if they reject an applicant solely on the basis of integrity test scores. • Scores on the honesty subscale of the Personnel Selection Inventory have been found to predict accurately subsequent employee theft. Health Issues and Privacy Treatment of Alcoholism • Alcoholism presents major medical and job problems. o Employers need to develop responsible policies and programs to deal with it without endangering rights of privacy. • 5 to 10 percent of employees are estimated to be alcoholics. o This costs employers billions of dollars annually in absenteeism, poor work, lost productivity, and increased health care costs. o Absence rates for alcoholic employees are two to four times those of other employees. o Alcoholics are found in all types of industries, occupations, and job levels. • The job environment can contribute to the problem, as can personal habits and problems. • Reasons for Company Programs o An increasing number of firms recognize that they have a role to play in helping alcoholics control or break their habit.  The firm and employee already have a working relationship on which they can build.  Any success with the employee will save both a valuable person for the company and a valuable citizen for society.  The job appears to be the best environment for supporting recovery since it helps an alcoholic retain a self-image as a useful person in society. • Successful Programs o Successful employer programs:  Treat alcoholism as an illness  Focus on the job behavior caused by alcoholism  Provide both medical and psychological help  Provide a non-threatening atmosphere Drug Abuse • Abuse of drugs other than alcohol, particularly if used at work, can cause severe problems for the employee, the employer, and other employees. o These drugs may include heroin, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamines, and marijuana, or the abuse may stem from the improper use of stimulants, barbiturates, and tranquilizers. o In some job situations, such as those of a pilot, surgeon, railroad engineer, or crane operator, the direct effects of drug abuse can be disastrous—both for the individual and for many others. • Drug Testing o The direct consequences of employee drug abuse are enormous.  Employee theft to support habits costs industry billions each year.  Absentee rates can be up to 16 times higher than for nonusers.  Accident rates are 4 times higher.  Lost productivity and additional health costs have been estimated to exceed $100 billion annually. o To combat this problem, the Drug-Free Workplace Act became law in the United States in 1988.  The law applies to employers with federal contracts over $25,000 and those obtaining financial assistance grants.  These businesses must create and distribute to their employees policies prohibiting drug abuse at work. o Many companies have adopted a policy for drug testing both new and current employees and some test job applicants as well.  The tests may be done on a periodic schedule, administered randomly, or given only when there is reason to suspect an employee. o Testing policies can be highly controversial.  Some tests are not satisfactorily accurate.  Some tests may produce false negative when the results fail to identify 5% of users.  Other employees may be incorrectly identified as users (false positives) can occur because of prescription drugs or food eaten.  Harm to reputation and self-esteem can occur before a false positive is detected.  Some may object to drug test due to their fear of revelation of medical conditions that they would prefer to keep private.  Some find it intrusive to be watched while providing test samples.  Many presume that they have a right to consume whatever substance they desire, however, possession and use of illegal drugs is not a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. o A possible solution to these problems with drug-testing lies in impairment testing.  This method usually consists of a brief motor-skills test performed on a computer; the test is much like playing a video game. Genetic Testing • Employee privacy rights issues have also emerged in the area of genetic testing. o New developments in the field of genetics allow physicians to use medical tests to accurately predict whether an employee may be genetically susceptible to or more types of illnesses or harmful substances. • Genetic testing is a more aggressive tool than genetic monitoring, which identifies harmful substances in the workplace, examines their effects on the genetic makeup of employees, and provides the basis for corrective action. o Positive uses of genetic testing information include:  Transferring the susceptible employees to other work areas where they will not be exposed to the substances  Providing health warnings  Developing protective measures to shield employees from danger o The negative side of genetic testing comes into play when a firm screens present employees or job applicants on the basis of genetic predispositions and uses the information to discriminate against them in an attempt to minimize the firm’s future health costs. o Effective in 2009, employee rights became increasingly protected under the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act (GINA).  This law prohibits employers from using personal or family genetic information to discriminate against them—even through accidental acquisition of such data. Discrimination • Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws generally prohibit job discrimination on the basis of: o Race o Color o National origin o Sex o Religion o Handicapped status o Other factors • Two EEO issues stand out as contemporary problems related to privacy. o Sexual harassment on the job, in which right to a non-offensive work environment is violated. o Diseases (AIDs) that some employees may have and their right to maintain medical privacy, continue working, and receive medical care. • Sexual Harassment o When supervisors make employment or promotion decisions contingent on sexual favors or when an employee’s colleagues engage in any verbal or physical conduct that creates an offensive working environment, sexual harassment exists. o Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when:  Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment.  Submission to or rejection of, such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting the individual.  Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment. o Harassment is a perceived action by others, but it is very real to the recipient.  Because it is somewhat individually defined, there is some disagreement over what constitutes sexual harassment. o Females responding to one survey included in their definition:  Sexual propositions  Unwanted physical touching  Sexual remarks and jokes  Suggestive gestures o Sexual harassment at work is still far too pervasive.  Such harassment can occur anywhere in a company, from executive offices to assembly lines.  It is distasteful and demeaning to its victims.  It is discriminatory, according to EEO laws and state and federal guidelines.  Sexual harassment is a violation of a person’s personal rights and an offense to human dignity. o Preventive practices include  Training programs to educate employees about the relevant law  Identifying actions that constitute harassment  Communicating possible liabilities and negative effects o Employers may be liable for reinstatement of the victims if they were unfairly discharged, and may have to pay back wages, punitive damages, and substantial awards for psychological suffering and pain. • AIDs o Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a deadly virus affecting the human immune system.  It is contagious through the receipt of infected blood and certain types of sexual contact.  It is incurable, often fatal, and is spreading rapidly in some part of the world.  There is widespread public concern and a lack of understanding.  The legal status of infected employees is unclear. o AIDs-related work issues  Protection of medical privacy  Educating co-workers  Effects on teamwork and group participation  Preventing harassment or social isolation  Employee AIDs testing o Employers need to be aware of the relevant laws that appear to include persons with AIDS under the definition and protection of “handicapped” or “disabled.”  These include the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Discipline • The area of discipline can have a strong impact on the individual in the organization. o Discipline is management action taken to enforce organizational standards. • The two types of discipline are preventive and corrective. o Preventive discipline is action taken to encourage employees to follow standards and rules so infractions do not occur.  Prevention is best done by making company standards known and understood in advance.  The basic objective is to encourage employee self-discipline. o Corrective discipline is action that follows infraction of a rule.  It seeks to discourage further infractions so future acts will be in compliance with standards.  It is a penalty of some type and is called disciplinary action. Examples are a warning or suspension with or without pay. • The objectives of disciplinary action are positive, educational, and corrective, as follows: o Reforming the offender o Deterring others from similar actions o Maintaining consistent, effective group standards • Most employers apply a policy of progressive discipline, which means there are stronger penalties for repeated offences. o The purpose is to give an employee an opportunity for self-correction before more serious penalties are applied. o A typical system of progressive discipline is shown in Figure 10.4. Quality of Work Life • Quality of work life (QWL) refers to the favorableness or unfavorable ness of a total job environment for people. • QWL programs are another way in which organizations recognize their responsibility to develop jobs and working conditions that are excellent for people as well as for the economic health of the organization. • The elements in a typical QWL program include: o Open communications o Equitable reward systems o Concern for employee job security and satisfying careers o A caring supervisor o Participation in decision making • Many early QWL efforts focused on job enrichment. • In addition to improving the work system, QWL programs usually emphasize development of employee skills, the reduction of occupational stress, and the development of more cooperative labor–management relations. A Rationale • Job specialization and simplification were popular in the early twentieth century. o Employees were assigned narrow jobs supported by a rigid hierarchy in the expectation that efficiency would improve. o The idea was to lower costs by using unskilled workers who could be trained easily to do a small, repetitive part of each job. • Many difficulties developed from the classical job design. o Excessive division of labor o Social isolation from co-workers o Weakened interest in the whole product o De-skilled workers lost pride in their work o Workers became bored with their work o Higher-order (social and growth) needs were left unsatisfied  The result was higher turnover and absenteeism, declines in quality, and alienated workers. • Two reasons for redesigning jobs and organizations for better QWL: o Classical design originally gave inadequate attention to human needs o The needs and aspirations of workers themselves were changing • One option that emerged was to redesign jobs to have the attributes desired by people, and redesign organizations to have the environment desired by people. o This approach seeks to improve QWL. o There is a need to give workers more of a challenge, more of a whole task, more opportunity to use their ideas. • Close attention to QWL provides a more humanized work environment. o It attempts to serve the higher-order needs of workers as well as their more basic needs. o It seeks to employ the higher skills of workers and to provide an environment that encourages them to improve their skills. • The idea is that human resources should be developed, not simply used. • Work should not have excessively negative conditions. o It should not put workers under undue stress. o It should not damage or degrade their humanness. o It should not be threatening or unduly dangerous. o It should contribute to, or at least leave unimpaired, workers’ abilities to perform in other life roles. Job Enlargement vs. Job Enrichment • The modern interest in quality of work life was stimulated through efforts to change the scope of people’s jobs in order to motivate them. • Job scope has two dimensions—breadth and depth. o Job breadth is the number of different tasks an individual is directly responsible for.  It ranges from very narrow to wide.  Employees with narrow job breadth were sometimes given a wider variety of duties in order to reduce their monotony; this process is called job enlargement.  Periodic assignment of an employee to a completely different set of job activities is called job rotation. o Job enrichment adds additional motivators to a job to make it more rewarding.  It was developed by Frederick Herzberg based on his studies indicating that the most effective way to motivate workers was by focusing on higher-order needs.  It seeks to add depth to a job by giving workers more control, responsibility, and discretion over how their job is performed. • Job enrichment brings many benefits, as shown in Figure 10.6. Applying Job Enrichment • In terms of Herzberg’s motivational factors, job enrichment occurs when: o The work itself is more challenging o Achievement is encouraged o There is opportunity for growth o Responsibility, feedback, and recognition are provided • Employees are the final judges of what enriches their jobs. o All that management can do is to gather information about what tends to enrich jobs, try those changes in the job system, and determine whether employees feel that enrichment has occurred. • Management must also give attention to maintenance factors. o If maintenance factors decline during an enrichment program, employees will be less responsive to the enrichment program. • Since job enrichment must occur from each employee’s personal viewpoint, not all employees will choose enriched jobs if given the option. Core Dimensions: A Job Characteristics Approach • J. Richard Heckman and Greg Oldham developed a job characteristics approach to job enrichment that identifies five core dimensions: o Skill variety o Task identity o Task significance o Autonomy o Feedback  Ideally a job must have all five dimensions to be fully enriched. • The core dimensions affect an employee’s psychological state, which tends to: o Improve performance, satisfaction, and quality of work o Reduce turnover and absenteeism  Their effect on quality of work is less dependable. • Although there are large individual differences in how employees react to core dimensions, the typical employee finds them to be basic for internal motivation. • The dimensions and their effects are shown in Figure 10.7. • Skill Variety o Skill variety allows employees to perform different operations that often require different skills.  It differs from the job breadth element because an enlarged job may still use the same skills on different tasks or products. o Jobs high in variety are seen as more challenging because of the range of skills involved.  These jobs relieve the monotony that develops from any repetitive activity.  Variety gives employees a greater sense of competence, because they can perform different kinds of work in different ways. • Task Identity o Task identity allows employees to perform a complete piece of the work, which provides a sense of completion or responsibility for the whole product. • Task Significance o Task significance refers to the amount of impact, as perceived by the worker that the work has on other people.  The impact can be on others in the organization or on those outside the firm. o The key point is that workers should believe that they are doing something important in their organization or society, or both. • Autonomy o Autonomy is the job characteristic that gives employees some discretion and control over job-related decisions.  It appears to be fundamental in building a sense of responsibility in workers. • Feedback o Feedback refers to information that tells workers how well they are performing.  It can come directly from the job itself, or it can be given verbally by management and other employees.  It can be positive or negative, but is best when appropriately balanced.  It should be early and continuous, rather than delayed and sporadic. o Feedback is highly significant to people at work.  They are investing a substantial part of their lives in their work, so they want to know how well they are doing.  Because performance does vary, they need to know how they are performing often (now). Enrichment Increases Motivation • The degree to which the five core dimensions are present in jobs must be evaluated before job enrichment can take place. o Employees need to be involved in this assessment, because their perceptions are most important. • After data are collected, usually by survey, an overall index for a job may be computed. o The overall index indicates the degree to which the job is perceived to:  Be meaningful (a combination of variety, identity, and significance)  Foster responsibility (autonomy)  Provide knowledge of results (feedback) • Enriched jobs increase the probability of high motivation, provided that employees: o Have adequate job knowledge and skills o Desire to learn, grow, and develop o Are satisfied with their work environment (are not distracted by negative hygiene factors) • Most job enrichment attempts have been conducted in manufacturing operations, but many have been attempted in banks, insurance companies, and other service organizations. Social Cues Affect Perceptions • Not all attempts to enrich jobs have been successful. o Employee perceptions of the core characteristics may not change, despite objective evidence that the job actually was changed. • One explanation for the lack of predicted changes from enrichment lies in the presence of social cues, which are often rather subtle bits of positive or negative information workers receive from their social surroundings. o Social cues may serve either to support or to counteract the direction of the objective task characteristics, as shown in Figure 10.8. • The key to job enrichment lies in how employees use the social cues provided by their peers and others to arrive at their own perception of their jobs. o This activity, called social information processing, covers three elements:  Peers may suggest which of the job characteristics really count to them.  They may offer their personal model regarding the weighting of each core dimension.  They may provide direct or indirect clues about their own judgments of the dimensions. • An integrated approach to job design suggests that managers focus on managing the social context of job changes, as well as the job enrichment process itself. o They must discover which groups are important sources of social cues. o They can also create expectations that the enriched jobs will have more of certain dimensions and thereby be more satisfying. Contingency Factors Affecting Enrichment • Job enrichment does not apply to all types of situations. o It applies more easily to higher-level jobs, which are less likely to be dictated by technological processes. o If the technology is stable and highly automated, the costs may be too great in relation to rewards. o Some workers do not want increased responsibility or more complex tasks, and other workers do not adapt to the groups interaction that is sometimes required. • Job enrichment may upset pay relationships. o Employees may expect more than intrinsic satisfaction for the additional duties and responsibilities they assume. o Many other costs and limitations exists other than pay. o Equipment and floor space may have to be redesigned. o Inventories may need to be increased, training costs may go up, and turnover may initially increase. o Union may resist enrichment attempts if existing job classifications are upset. • Those planning job enrichment programs need to ask the following questions about employee needs and attitudes: o Can the employee tolerate (and welcome) responsibility? o How strong are the employee’s growth and achievement needs? o What is the employee’s attitude and experience regarding group work? o Can the employee intellectually and emotionally handle more complexity? o How strong are the employee’s drives for security and stability? o Will the employees view the job changes as significant enough to justify the costs? o Can a job be over enriched? The Individual’s Responsibilities to the Organization • The employment relationship is two-way. o The organization has responsibilities to the individual. o The individual has responsibilities to the organization. • Employment is a mutual transaction and a social exchange. o Each employee makes certain membership investments in the organization and expects profitable rewards in return. • A relationship is profitable for either party when benefits (outputs) are larger than costs (inputs) measured in a total value system. o The profitable relationship deteriorates if either party fails to act responsibly toward the needs of the other. o The employees can fail to act responsibly, just as the organization can. o If they do, they can expect the organization to respond by using tight controls to try to maintain a successful operating system. • Individual’s responsibilities to the organization include: o Dues-paying o Building mutual trust o Organizational citizenship o Whistle-blowing Organizational Citizenship • Employees are expected to go beyond their job descriptions and be good organizational citizens. o This parallels the way the organization is expected to behave in the broader society in which it operates. • Employees who are organizational citizens engage in positive social acts designed to benefit others. • Typical categories of citizenship include: o Helping others (altruism) and cooperating with them (sharing time and resources) o Civic virtue (attending meetings and complying with rules and procedures) o Sportsmanship and courtesy (positive attitude) o Conscientiousness (efficient use of work time and exerting extra effort) o Organizational loyalty (endorsing and supporting organizational practices) Dues-Paying • Dues-paying consists of the total “costs” that a person’s group believes an individual should pays for the privileges of full acceptance and continuing membership in it. These costs might include: o Minimum qualifications of the employee o Willingness to work without complaining about undesirable tasks o Showing respect to others o Not acting superior to others o Performing at an above-average level o Spending the appropriate amount of time at one’s job • Dues-paying has several key characteristics: o It is a perceptual phenomenon o It is judged by many different observers o It is situation-specific o A group’s memory of dues paid may be faulty or even diminish over time • The idea of dues paid is based on the concept of idiosyncrasy credits: o Over time, a person earns credits that can be “cashed in” when necessary—somewhat similar to a personal bank account. • The significance of dues lies in the importance of recognizing one’s own obligations to others, both objective and subjective in nature. • When well-earned rewards are received, employees would be wise to: o Downplay the accomplishment o Deflect the praise o Share the credit Blowing the Whistle on Unethical Behavior • Some people act in dishonest ways at some points in their work careers for the following reasons: o Direct benefits gained (self-interest) o The mere opportunity to cut corners o The thrill of the challenge to do so and not get caught o Organization’s pressure on employees to perform amid the existence of incompatible demands • Tighter controls, ethical codes, and ethical training programs are often unsuccessful or short-lived. • Two powerful forces can work to diminish dishonesty: o Basic honesty and respect for truth-telling among some people o Availability of ethical role models • Four characteristics of ethical mentors and leaders: o Positive interpersonal behaviors (hardworking, supportive, caring, concerned, compassionate) o Ethical expectations for themselves (honest, trustworthy, humble, self-sacrificial) o Fairness toward others (solicit and use inputs, not condescending, fair distributors of resources) o Articulation of ethical standards to others (put ethics above themselves, uncompromising in support of high ethical standards, hold others accountable) • Being a good organizational citizen does not extend to blind conformity, such as: o Supporting illegal activities of the organization o Bending to organizational pressures o Engaging in any other activities that seriously violate social standards o Figure 10.9 shows alternative employee responses to wrongful acts. • Whistle-blowing is the act of disclosing alleged misconduct to an internal or external source. o This misconduct might be violation of a rule or law, fraud, safety violation, or corruption. • Some employees are more likely than others to be whistle-blowers in organizations. o They are workers who have strong evidence of having observed wrongdoing, who believe it to be a serious problem, and who feel it directly affects them. o Such conscientious people are likely to be professionals with long service, people previously recognized as good performers, and those who work in organizations perceived by others to be responsive to complaints. • Some employees blow the whistle because they feel obligated to protect the public; some do it because they are afraid of the legal consequences of being prosecuted themselves, and others do so in retaliation for the treatment they have received from their employer • Although there are laws to protect whistle-blowers, some employees have been the subject of employer retaliation such as harassment, transfer, or discharge (firing). o The need for whistle-blowing can be diminished by creating a variety of ways for employees to voice their concerns inside the organization—and encouraging this behavior. Mutual Trust • Whistle-blowing often occurs because a previous mutual trust has deteriorated or been broken. • Mutual trust is the joint faith in the responsibility and actions of the parties involved; when it is present, each person has a strongly positive expectation that the other person will do the right thing. o Development of mutual trust occurs over a period of time through the emergence of mutual understanding, the development of emotional bonds, and the demonstration of trustworthy behaviors. o However, it can be broken in an instant through inappropriate word or action by either party. Instructor Manual for Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work John W. Newstrom 9780078112829, 9781259254420