Foundation of Individual Behavior

Unit-2

Foundation of individual behavior

(factors influencing)

Organization is composed of individuals. Each of them differs in perceptions, motives and abilities. The behaviour of each individual is influenced by several factors. A study of these factors is useful to understand the subject OB better.

Environmental factors
Economics
Social norms and cultures
Political
Personal factors
Age
Sex
Education
Abilities
Marital status
No of dependants
Performance
Organizational systems
Physical facilities
Leadership
Reward system
Organization structure
Individual development
Psychological factors
Perception
Attitude
Value
Learning

Environmental factors:

Environmental factors include the variables as economic, social, and political and the like. These factors influence individual behaviour considerably.

a. Economic factors:

The economic environment is an important determinant of individual behavior. Economic environment is a synthesis of several factors as employment level, wage rates, technological change etc.

b. Cultural environment:

The cultural environment is made up of institutions and other forces that affect society’s basic values, perceptions, work ethic, preferences and behaviours.People grow up in a particular society that shapes their basic beliefs, values and behaviors. Culture varies from country to country and these variations produce different behaviors across the countries.

c. Political factors:

The political climate in which an individual lives can affect individual behaviour through several factors. The stability of the government can affect employment opportunities, both in quantity and quality. Politically unstable environment has difficulty in attracting the industries.

Personal factors:

It includes the factors like age, sex, education, abilities, marital status, number of dependents etc.

a. Age:

Age is an important variable, because of its impact on performance, turnover, absenteeism, productivity and satisfaction. Performance depends upon age. As age advances performance is likely to decline. Similarly absenteeism also occurs.

b. Sex:

The issue of male and female employees has received considerable attention from academicians, sociologists, and researches. Sex has its impact on turnover and absenteeism. In our society the responsibility has historically placed home and family on the female. When a child is ill someone needs to stay in home and it goes to female to stay in home.

c. Education:

Education has its effect upon individual behaviour, largely through the level and type of education received. Increased levels of education serve to increase individual’s expectations.

d. Abilities:

Abilities refer to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. Ability of an individual is made up of two sets of skills-intellectual and physical.

Intellectual abilities are needed to perform mental activities. Physical abilities manifest in one’s stamina, manual dexterity, leg strength and the like.

e. Marital status:

Marital status has influence on absenteeism, turnover and satisfaction. Married employees have fewer absences and are more satisfied with their jobs than the unmarried ones.

f. Number of dependents:

There is correlation between number of dependents an employee has and his or her absences and satisfaction. Number of children an employee has is positively related to absence, especially among females.

Organization system and resources:

a. Physical facilities:

The physical facilities such as lighting, ventilation, air-conditioning, painting on walls, space provided for each employee, equipment and the like will have their influence on employee behaviour and performance.

b. Organisation structure:

The behaviour and performance of an individual is influenced by where that person fits into the overall structure and design of the organization

c. Leadership:

The organization establishes a system of leadership and supervision to provide direction, assistance, advice and coaching to individual members. The leader behaviour is therefore a potential source of influence on an individual.

d. Reward systems:

Organisations establish reward systems to compensate their employees. The behaviour and performance of an individual is influenced by the reward system.

Psychological factors:

Psychological factors are an individual’s mental characteristics and attributes that can affect behaviour. It includes,

a. Perception:

The psychological processes that allow an individual to adjust his behaviour is called perception”

b. Attitude:

The attitude is the evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events.

c. Personality:

Personality is composed of several characteristics. Personality is influenced by several factors such as family, characteristics, learning, social influences, psychological features, etc.

d. Learning:

Learning may be defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of prior experience

Attitudes

An attitude is a cognitive element; it always remains inside a person. In organizational context, employees have attitudes related to job security or uncertainty, prestige of the department and the work that does etc. The individual's attitudes toward these factors are indicative of his apathy or enthusiasm toward the activities and objectives of the organization.

The attitude is the evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events.

More precisely attitudes can be defined as a persistent tendency to feel and behave in a particular way toward some object which may include events or individuals as well.

Attitude can be characterized in three ways:

-First, they tend to persist unless something is done to change them.

-Second, attitudes can fall anywhere along a continuum from very favorable to very unfavorable.

-Third, attitudes are directed toward some object about which a person has feelings (sometimes called “affect”) and beliefs.

(iii) Components and functions of attitudes

Components of Attitudes

The three basic components of attitude are cognitive, conative and affective part.

1. Cognitive Component

Cognitive Componentof Attituderefers to opinion or belief part of attitude. When you form your opinion or judgment on the basis of available information and decide whether you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion on that, it the cognitive part of attitude we are talking about.

2. Conative Component

Conative Componentof Attituderefers to the emotional aspect of attitude. This is perhaps the most often referred part of attitude and decides mostly the desirable or undesirable aspect attitude.

3. Affective Component

Affective Component of Attituderefers to the behavioral part of attitude. If we have a positive attitude for a particular object, it is likely to be translated into a particular type of behavior, such as buying or procuring that object.

Formation of attitude

How attitudes are formed? How do you develop your attitude? Essentially attitudes are the outward manifestation of your inner values and beliefs. These develop over time. As you grow you watch the significant people around you behaving in a particular way; you are being told to cherish certain things over others and you learn from your teachers and peers and come to value certain things over other, thus forming your value system. These in turn give rise to development of your attitudes.

1. Attitudes help predict work behavior.

The following example might help to illustrate it. After introducing a particular policy, it is found from an attitude survey, that the workers are not too happy about it. During the subsequent week it is found that the attendance of the employees drops sharply from the previous standard. Here management may conclude that a negative attitude toward new work rules led to increased absenteeism.

2. Attitudes help people to adapt to their work environment.

An understanding of attitudes is also important because attitudes help the employees to get adjusted to their work. If the management can successfully develop a positive attitude among the employees, they will be better adjusted to their work.

Functions of Attitude

According to Katz, attitudes serve four important functions from the viewpoint of organizational behaviour. These are as follows.

1. The Adjustment Function.

Attitudes often help people to adjust to their work environment. Well-treated employees tend to develop a positive attitude towards their job, management and the organization in general while berated and ill treated organizational members develop a negative attitude. In other words, attitudes help employees adjust to their environment and form a basis for future behaviour.

2.Ego-Defensive Function.

Attitudes help people to retain their dignity and self- image. When a young faculty member who is full of fresh ideas and enthusiasm, joins the organization, the older members might feel somewhat threatened by him. But they tend to disapprove his creative ideas as ‘crazy’ and ‘impractical’ and dismiss him altogether.

3.The Value-Expressive Function.

Attitudes provide individuals with a basis for expressing their values. For example, a manager who values hard and sincere work will be more vocal against an employee who is having a very casual approach towards work.

4.The Knowledge Function.

Attitudes provide standards and frames of reference that allow people to understand and perceive the world around him. If one has a strong negative attitude towards the management, whatever the management does, even employee welfare programmes can be perceived as something ‘bad’ and as actually against them.

Changing Attitudes

Employees’ attitudes can be changed and sometimes it is in the best interests of managements to try to do so. For example, if employees believe that their employer does not look after their welfare, the management should try to change their attitude and help develop a more positive attitude in them. However, the process of changing the attitude is not always easy. There are some barriers which have to be overcome if one strives to change somebody’s attitude.

There are two major categories of barriers that come in the way of changing attitudes:

1. Prior commitment when people feel a commitment towards a particular course of action that have already been agreed upon and thus it becomes difficult for them to change or accept the new ways of functioning.

2. Insufficient information also acts as a major barrier to change attitudes. Sometimes people simply see any reason to change their attitude due to unavailability of adequate information.

Some of the possible ways of changing attitudes are described below.

1. Providing New Information.

Sometimes a dramatic change in attitude is possible only by providing relevant and adequate information to the person concerned. Scanty and incomplete information can be a major reason for brewing negative feeling and attitudes.

2. Use of Fear.

Attitudes can be changed through the use of fear. People might resort to change their work habit for the fear of fear of unpleasant consequences. However, the degree of the arousal of fear will have to be taken into consideration as well.

3. Resolving Discrepancies.

Whenever people face a dilemma or conflicting situation they feel confused in choosing a particular course of action. Like in the case where one is to choose from between two alternative courses of action, it is often become difficult for him to decide which is right for him. Even when he chooses one over the other, he might still feel confused. If someone helps him in pointing out the positive points in favor of the chosen course of action, he person might resolve the dilemma.

4. Influence of friends and peers.

A very effective way of changing one’s attitude is through his friends and colleagues. Their opinion and recommendation for something often proves to be more important. If for example, they are all praise for a particular policy introduced in the work place, chances are high that an individual will slowly accept that even when he had initial reservations for that.

5. Co-opting.

If you want to change the attitude of somebody who belongs to a different group, it is often becomes very effective if you can include him in your own group. Like in the case of the union leader who are all the time vehemently against any management decision, can be the person who takes active initiative in implementing a new policy when he had participated in that decision making process himself.

Nature and Characteristics of Attitude

An attitude is a tendency to react positively or negatively in regard to an object. For example, a person who has a positive attitude towards the religion is likely to enjoy going to worship services, believe that the religious institutions foster morality and may, therefore, contribute financially also. An attitude is always directed toward some object, such as the temple, school, etc. A person who has an attitude has a readiness or a disposition to react favorable or unfavorable to anyone of a large variety of related situations. Until some situation arouses it, however, the attitude is latent.

Attitude can be characterized by:

Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals.
The feelings and beliefs are directed towards other people, objects or ideas.
Attitudes tend to result in behaviour or behaviour.
Attitudes endure.
All people, irrespective of their status or intelligence hold attitudes.
Attitudes can fall anywhere along a continuum from very favourable to very unfavourable.

Valence:It refers to the magnitude or degree of favorableness or unfavorableness toward the object/event. If a person is relatively indifferent toward an object then his attitude has low valence.

Multiplicity: It refers to the number of elements constituting the attitude. For example, one student may show interest in studies, but another not only shows interest, but also works hard, is sincere, and serious.

Relation to Needs: Attitudes vary in relation to needs they serve. For example, attitudes of an individual toward the pictures may serve only entertainment needs. On the other hand, attitudes of an employee toward task may serve strong needs for security, achievement, recognition, and satisfaction.

Types of Attitudes (elements of attitude)

A person can have thousands of attitudes, but OB focuses the attention only a very limited number of job related attitudes. The following are some types of attitudes:

Job Satisfaction:

It refers to an individual's general attitude toward his or her job. A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitudes towards the job, while a person who is not satisfied holds a negative attitude about the job.

Job Involvement:

It measures the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his or her job and considers his or her perceived performance level important to his or her self worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do on their job

Organizational Commitment:

It is defined as a state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization. So high job involvement means identifying with one's specific job, while high organizational commitment means identifying with one's employing organization.

Job Satisfaction

“Job satisfaction is a set of favourable or unfavourable feelings with which employees view their work”

Consequences of satisfaction

High job satisfaction leads to,

a. improved productivity,

b. increased turnover,

c. improved attendance,

d. reduced accidents,

e. less job stress, and lower unionization.

Sources of job satisfaction

Several ways of measurement of job satisfaction are available. The most popular ways are the rating scales, critical incidents, interviews and action tendencies.

Causes and consequences of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction

Wages

Nature of work

Chances of promotion When unfavourable

Supervision

work group

Working conditions

When favourable

Personality

Introduction to Personality

People reveal utmost diversity and variety. They differ in their outlook, emotional volatility, and physical appearance and so on. Some people are quiet and passive, while others are loud and aggressive. This leads to the study of personality, which represents a significant aspect of individual differences.

Personality is an important factor influencing an employee's behaviour. Individual traits and attributes reflect an employee's personality. The relationship between supervisor and employees is reflected in their personalities.Personality traits reveal various types of persons and therefore predict their behaviour. Personality is a significant variable of behaviour and includes a large number of qualities which cannot be easily changed.

Personality is composed of several characteristics. Personality is influenced by several factors such as family, characteristics, learning, social influences, psychological features, etc.

“The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.”

"Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment."

“Personality is the study of unique traits of an individual”

Determinants of Personality

Personality is the outcome of a continuous personal quality development process. The role of personality becomes clear in a particular situation. Personality is recognised in a situation. It is the result of personal quality interaction in a particular condition. The major determinants of personality of an individual are given below:

a. Biological Factors

-Heredity:

Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical stature, facial attractiveness, sex, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are generally considered to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents were; that is, by their biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup. The contribution of heredity to personality development is vividly clear for developing external appearance, behaviour, social stimuli, self inner awareness, organizing traits, etc.