Relationship between Attitudes and Behavior - Coursework Example

Heading: Organizational behavior Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Introduction There are various factors that define an organization’s performance; these factors are closely linked to the attitudes and the behaviors of employees in the organization. Organizational behavior tries to explain the significance of various factors that influence the performance of a company. Some of these factors include employee’s attitudes, motivation, job satisfaction and behaviors. This essay presents the relationship between attitudes and behaviors in an organizational setting in bid to show their significance and how they relate to each other. More so because of the significance of attitudes in a workplace, their roles are also outlined in details in order to elaborate on the varying components of attitudes that have a direct impact on the organization performance. This paper also points out the contribution of the organization towards the development of various behaviors in an organizational setting. Attitude of hope, organizational commitment and job satisfaction are identified as the major roles of attitudes and they are commonly contributed by the organizational management in different ways. Relationship between attitudes and behavior In order to provide a comprehensive relationship between attitudes and behaviors, it is imperative to consider the meaning and significance of both in order to shade more light on their implications. According to I-Fei Liao (2009) personality and attitudes are usually similar in many aspects and thus hard to differentiate. Attitudes are feelings, beliefs and behavioral tendencies that a group of people in an organizational setting show. They usually reflect a people’s background and their experiences as formed by different forces which includes their personal values, personalities and experiences. Attitudes are significant because of different reasons, they are usually stable over a period of time, they are commonly directed towards something like their job and they also influence people’s behavior. Behavior in the other hand can be explained as the consequences of people’s attitudes and personality developed over a period of time. It is also the tendencies of people to carry out activities or respond in a particular way in an organization. As noted from the above definitions, the relationship between behaviors and attitudes cannot be overemphasized. This is fundamentally because attitudes shape the behavior of a person. According to Borkowski (2010, p.41) referring to people’s attitudes, explains people’s behaviors. This is because attitudes are complex combination of people’s personality, values, motivation and beliefs. As an example, if an individual has a positive attitude towards his or her work, we also imply that such person’s emotions and behaviors are also positive about his or her work. In general, attitude is a point of view which is developed over time through experiences and personality. More so attitudes also include thoughts and actions which form the core aspects of behavior (Borkowski 2010, p.41). The other relationship between attitudes and behaviors is that attitudes show how a person evaluates a situation or a person. This affects the behavior of that person towards such situation or person. As an example, a person with a negative attitude toward his or her manager will have a higher tendency to behave negatively towards that person or the manager in that case. The attitude in this case shapes the behavior of the person towards the manager (Borkowski 2010, p.41). As such we can consider attitudes as intrinsic components of a person which results in behaviors which is an extrinsic component of attitude. As clearly outline in this explanation, certain behaviors either negative or positive are developed as a result of attitudes that people have towards different things. In this case, the attitude and personality of an individual contributes to their perception and consequently behavior towards certain people, objects or situations. In summary behaviors are external manifestations of attitudes. Roles of attitudes in organizational behavior Attitudes are usually manifested in a number of ways in an organizational setting which then influences employee’s behavior towards the organizations. There are key components of attitudes which shape people’s behavior in workplace. These key components of attitudes are: Affective component which includes feelings, moods, sentiments, and emotions about something, someone, idea or even an event. Cognitive components are thoughts, knowledge, opinions and information possessed by an individual. Behavioral component is a predisposition to behave either positively or negatively towards something. Most importantly these components function simultaneously and thus shaping the behavior of a person in an organization. People tend to form attitudes towards several things and thus affecting their actions towards different things in a unique manner. Employees may have different attitudes towards their boss, working condition, pay, promotions, food provided by the company and parking place among others. These attitudes have varying degrees of effects meaning that some may be significant while other may not be significant (Hellriegel & Slocum 2007). This is because some attitudes may be closely linked to job performance while others may not be linked with job performance. Attitudes towards parking space and company’s food may not significantly affect the behavior of employees toward their job. On the other hand there are three major attitudes that influence performance of an employee significantly, these attitudes includes; organizational commitment, attitudes of hope and job satisfaction. Organizational commitment attitude may be as a result of employee satisfaction with the work conditions, incentives, motivations and general handling of employees in an organization. Organizations handle their employees in different ways, these ways influences the behaviors of employees toward the organization (Hellriegel & Slocum 2007). For instance, an organization like Google offers development opportunities, less interference with people’s inventions, awards and recognition. Because of the company’s positive handling of employees, the company’s employees have developed positive attitudes towards the company and thus enhancing their commitment which translates to increased performance (Robbins & Judge 2008). Other companies such as Dell treat their employees based on performance and hence influencing their behavior or attitude toward the company. Such a company usually experiences a higher employee turnover because of the attitudes that the company cultivates in their employees over a period of time. Attitude of hope also affects an individual performance in a company; hope involves a person’s willpower or the determination and a way power or a road towards achieving a goal. The way power provides a means of achieving the willpower, hope can thus be defined by use of mental willpower and way power of achieving the goals. An employee with high hope therefore has a tendency to pursue challenging goals and also pursue them with positive attitudes. Such employees usually engage in self-talk like ‘this task is interesting and I am ready for the challenge’. A person with high hope tends to be more attentive and focused on some goals. They also commit themselves high performance in their jobs as compared to low-hope people. Because these people establish clear goals they also imagine pathways to their goals and also intrinsically motivate themselves towards these goals (Griffin & Moorhead 2011). On the contrary people with low hope have not goals, pathways of achieving themselves and they also don’t motivate themselves and thus do not attain any significant goals as compared to their high hope counterparts. Job satisfaction attitude is also another imperative component of employee’s attitudes toward their jobs in their organizations. There is a close relationship between job satisfaction and job satisfaction. It is obvious that job satisfaction result in high performance in workplace and vice versa. Employees with more job satisfaction tend to behave more appropriately and commit themselves more in their jobs as compared to people with less job satisfaction. Notably job satisfaction is brought about by a number of factors which includes the actions or perception of bosses and the organizational culture. A culture of respect to employees in their respective positions in the company tends to create more job satisfaction which results in increased performance. On the contrary, an organization that has negative culture tends to cultivate negative attitudes in employees which results in significant reduction in the level of job satisfaction (Robbins & Judge 2008). As noted, attitudes tend to have a significant role in the way in which employees behave in their organization. More so, job performance is closely related to the employee’s attitude in workplace and thus meaning that negative attitude develops as a result of the organization’s culture and general attitude of the organization’s management. Conclusion This essay has elaborated on the different factors about attitudes and behaviors in an organization, as noted there is a close relationship between attitude and behavior. Attitudes are the intrinsic components of a behavior and they form the basis of a person’s behavior in an organization. Attitudes are also closely related to personalities and they therefore form a fundamental basis for the outward expression of a person. Because of the complex nature of attitudes, it is usually difficult to predict a person’s behavior with accuracy because of the need to incorporate other useful aspects of attitude. The role of attitude in workplace is also significant and hence the need to closely study the effects of attitudes. There are three major attitudes that influence performance of an employee significantly, these attitudes includes; organizational commitment, attitudes of hope and job satisfaction as discussed in this paper. References Borkowski, N 2010, Organizational behavior in health care, Jones & Bartlett Learning, Michigan. Pp. 40-54. Griffin, RW & Moorhead, G 2011, Organizational Behavior, Cengage Learning, Sydney. Pp. 70-80. Hellriegel, D & Slocum, JW 2007, Organizational behavior, Cengage Learning, Canberra. I-Fei Liao, C 2009, Individual Characteristics, Organizational Justice and Job Attitudes of Employees under Non-standard, International Journal of Management, vol. 26, no. 3, pp.23-34. Robbins, SP & Judge, T 2008, Organizational Behavior, Pearson Prentice Hall, Canberra. Read More