In what circumstances do attitudes determine behaviours at work Why are attitudes useful for a person Examine how much is known about what factors determine either job satisfaction or organisational commitment.  To what extent does organisational commitment suggests that managers in organisation should care about how committed their staffs are.

Answer:

The term organisation behaviour signifies the behaviour that employees display at a workplace. Organisation is a collection of human beings which are interrelated to each other with some duties and responsibilities. Each individual in the organisation has his own goals, aspirations, background and situations. Therefore everyone in the organisation displays a certain set of behaviour. Combination of behaviours of all the individuals formulates the organisation behaviour. It is always necessary to keep employees satisfied for a positive behaviour in the organisation. Organisation behaviour is an interdisciplinary field of study. The disciplines that contribute to organisation behaviour include psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology and political science. In brief organisational behaviour can be defined as the study of behaviours of individual and how it impacts the performance of the organisation. The core topics of OB include attitude, interpersonal communication, processes, group structure, learning, conflict and work stress. Current state of the field has witnessed growing role of anthropology. The concept of positive organisational behaviour has also evolved over the years. The field of organisation behaviour is changing and developing with the time.

Attitude can be defined as person’s belief, values and opinions about a particular thing. Attitude is considered an important element in determining the individual behaviour at workplace. For example if a person speaks positively about a person, it will be displayed in his behaviour he will try to enter his team when given a chance. Attitude is often considered as the central focus of persuasion and behaviour is perceived as an outcome of interest in both the persuasion research and practice. However, the relationship between attitude and behaviour is not direct. There is a complex relationship between attitude and behaviour (Frymier and Nadler, 2017). Some authors argue that attitude is a hypothetical concept. There are various other factors that influence behaviour. Therefore there are possibilities that behaviour of certain individual may be unrelated or negatively related to the behaviour (Sharma, 2016). Various factors play a role in determining behaviour other than the attitude. There is a link between attitude and behaviour, but the extent to which attitude influences behaviour depends on the strength of that connection. There are broadly three circumstances under which attitude determine the behaviour. These circumstances are the impact of the other influences is minimised, if the attitude is very strong, powerful or influential and the last circumstance is that attitude is in a very close relation with the predicted behaviour (Myers, 2012).

Attitude plays a vital role in a person’s life. It is the force that guides an individual to attain the highest potential in life.  It is important for a person to monitor his or her attitude and its impact on the behaviour, surroundings and work performance. Attitude can be turned out very useful if a person learns the way to handle his or her attitude effectively. For maximising the usefulness from attitudes it is important to have attitude awareness. Attitude forms the opinion or perception of the person, it determines the way he sees the world (Harell, 2016).

Although there are no distinct set of theories of organisation behaviour that can be applied to organisation setting but theories from the related disciples and fields can be applied in context of organisation behaviour. Few common theories are trait theory, Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, Vroom’s theory etc. Trait theory states that the leadership characteristics in the person are not inborn; they can develop over time (Ghasabeh, Soosay, and Reaiche, 2015.). In an organisation behaviours of employee can be developed. Maslow’s need hierarchy theory defined five categories of needs that are physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs (Taormina, and Gao, 2013). In order to gain positive behaviour in the organisation and keep the employees motivated, organisation should try to fulfil the needs of the employees at different levels. According to the expectancy theory of the Vroom, behaviour is the outcome of choices. The choice is made for the purpose of minimizing the pain and maximising the pleasure. It is based on three elements Expectancy (efforts), Instrumentality (performance) and Valence (reward) (Parijat and Bagga, 2014).

The degree of job satisfaction and organisational commitment are in direct relation with the organisation behaviour. High degree resembles positivity in the organisation behaviour whereas low degree resembles negativity in the organisation behaviour. Job satisfaction can be explained as the degree of contentment that a person has towards his job. In other words it can be described as the feeling of fulfilment or pleasure that the employee feels about his job. The factors that determine job satisfaction include organisational factors, environment factors, work itself and personal factors. In the stated factors organisational factors hold the utmost importance. Organisational factors include salaries & wages, policies & procedures and chances of promotion. Environment factors include supervising style of the supervisor, work group and the working conditions or working environment. Work related factors are autonomy and freedom, job content, role clarity, interest in work and scope of the job. Personal factors can be many and hard to determine some of the common factors are age, tenure, aspirations and personality. Organisation commitment can be defined as the devotion of employee towards the organisation. In other words it can also be termed as loyalty that an employee holds towards an organisation (Wahaibi, 2016). It is evident from the studies that organisational commitment and job satisfaction are inter related terms. Job satisfaction is positively related to organisational commitment (Srivastava, 2013). Major factors that contribute to organisational commitment are task orientation, knowledge sharing, organisational justice, chances of training & development and compensation & incentives (Cheah, Chong, Yeo, and Pee, 2016) The factors of organisational commitment and job satisfaction are directly or indirectly related to each other.

Organisation commitment is very important for an organisation. Manger should always make efforts to the maximum possible extent to build up the commitment of the employee. There are variety of ways in which manager can enhance the commitment of the staff. The most important practice to adopt is, know the employee. Mangers should devote their time in knowing about various aspects of employees, it will help in improving employee motivation and engagement. Managers should provide trainings to the employees so that they could effectively handle the job and can excel in their carriers. It is also suggested that mangers should act as a coach for their employees (TNS, 2014). Managers can also gain organisational commitment by implementing a model. This model is correlation of four parts goal setting, employee engagement, workplace optimism and organisational commitment. The most important and initial step in the model is goal setting, thus sufficient time and effort must be given to this step.

In the globalised world maintain positive organisation behaviour in the organisation is not an easy task for the mangers. There are various day to day challenges that need to be maintained.  These challenges arise due to cultural, ethical and social concerns. Major challenges in the field of organisation behaviour include responding to the globalisation, managing the diverse workforce, empowering the employees and stimulating the innovation & change in the organisation. Today the markets are globalised; businesses expand to gain market shares ignoring the boundaries of the nation. Managers need to manage the workforce of various countries having distinct set of behaviours. Managers have to exhibit tolerance and manage individual differences. Another major challenge is to manage the diverse workforce. Employees come from different cultures, traditions, races and ethnicity. Managers have the challenging task to manage the diverse workforce and obtain the best out of them (Podsiadlowski, Gröschke, Kogler, Springer, and Van Der Zee, 2013). The next challenge in the context of organisation behaviour is empowering the employees. Mangers must learn to delegate their task to the subordinates and also give them the freedom and authority to take charge of their own decisions (Luoh, Tsaur and Tang, 2014). The next change is developing the spirit of innovation and creativity in the employees.  Managers are also concerned about managing the employee’s reaction to change.  There are varieties of ways in which a manger can increase organisational commitment of the staff. Most important way is maintain a relationship with the employee.

It can be concluded that organisation behaviour is formed of behaviours of different individuals. Each individual has his own goals and aspiration, goals, situations and beliefs which influence his behaviour at workplace. Various other fields that contribute to organisational behaviour include psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology and political science. Theories from various concepts and disciplines contribute to organisation behaviour.  Attitude is an important of organisation however, it not the only element formulating organisation behaviour. Therefore complex relationship exists between attitude and organisation behaviour. Attitude can influence organisation behaviour when other impact of the other factors is minimized or the attitude is strong enough. Job satisfaction and organisational behaviour are closely interrelated terms. Both the terms are directly related to organisational behaviour. The globalised world has also created various issues and challenges for organisational behaviour. These challenges include responding to the globalisation, managing the diverse workforce, empowering the employees and stimulating the innovation & change in the organisation. Current state of the field demonstrates growing role of anthropology.

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