what are attitudes

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Modern Science and Arts UniversityFaculty of Management Sciences

Marketing DepartmentSpring 2011

Organizational Behavior MGT 301

Attitudes and Job satisfactionApplication on Piraeus Bank Egypt

Submitted to

Prof. Dr. Emad Elwy T.A. Nouran Fayed

Submitted byMahdy Mohamed El Labben 085691

Saad Harraz 070651

Omar HeshamAbd El Atty 104789Rami Ashraf


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Contents

Abstract 3

Introduction 4

Piraeus Bank History 5

Piraeus Vision and Mission 6

What are Attitudes? 7

How do we form Attitudes? 8Job Attitudes 9

Interview questions 10

Theoretical Frame Work 11

Sample of answer 13

Recommendations 14

Conclusion 15

References 16

Appendix 17


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Ab stract

In this research, we examine the relationship between Attitudesand Job satisfaction and their impact on each other. We decided toapply this research on Piraeus Bank in Egypt, by interviewing fiveemployees and one manager, we found that there is a weak relationship

between attitude and job satisfaction so we cannot say that attitudes canaffect behavior 100 % but have a slight impact on how an employee can

behave. Concerning the job satisfaction, the employees are satisfied withsome of the important general aspects but not satisfied with others. Wecan go first more in deep with this paper and then we will see what we

found and what we recommend for better job satisfaction for PiraeusBank in Egypt.


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I ntroduction

Attitudes are the base of many decisions that people take in their daily life. People can quite their job and look for another one, can think about leaving their neighborhood and move somewhere else, they canalso brake up with others,just because they are forming new attitudestoward idea, brand name, product, persons, places etc.

It started in 1970s, where researchers asked when and why attitudesguide behavior, with putting into consideration the strength of attitudes.

Actually, attitudes are playing an important role in understanding thehuman behavior, since long time ago in the very early beginning of thescientific psychological studies.


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P iraeus Bank Group

Brief History.

Piraeus Bank Group is one of the most dynamic and active financial

organizations in Greece today. Founded in 1916, Piraeus Bank went

through a period of state-ownership and management (1975-1991) before

it was privatized in December 1991. Since th en, it has continuously grown

in size and activities.

Today, Piraeus Bank leads a group of companies covering all financial

and banking activities in the Greek market (universal bank). Piraeus Bank

possesses particular know-how in the areas of retail banking, small and

medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), capital markets and investment

banking, leasing.

These services are offered through the Bank's nation -wide network and

also through the electronic banking network of Winbank. The latter was

launched in the beginning of 2000, as the first complete electronic banking

service in Greece, offering a full set of services through four different

channels of distribution (Internet, mobile phone, call center and ATMs).


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Vision.

The main medium term goals of Piraeus Bank Group are to maintain a

balanced growth in terms of loans and deposits, achieve high efficiency

and sustain superior asset quality and satisfactory capital adequacy.

Piraeus will continue to focus on SMEs and retail banking segments,

where it holds strong expertise, while capitalizing on its young branch

network, both in Greece and abroad.

Mission.

The Group's fundamental policy direction for human resourcesdevelopment is based on the efficient management of human resources,

leading to the creation of skillful and dedicated personnel able to function

within the framework of the competitive EU banking market. At the end of

March 2010, the Group employed 13,442 people.

Achievements.

At the end of March 2010, Piraeus Bank Group had a network of 876

branches (359 in Greece and 517 abroad) and its equity capital amounted

to 3,579 mn. The clients' deposits, repos and retail bonds issued

amounted to 30,084 mn, net loans reached 37,736 mn and total assets

were 55,220 mn.


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A ttitudes

What are attitudes?

Attitudes are the disposition or tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain thing (idea, object, person, and situation). [1]

As we all know, people behave differently to a same thing, and one person can have different behavior towards different things. It depends onhis attitudes and how a person forms his attitudes.

Generally speaking, attitudes have main components.

1- Cognitive = evaluationis the way how an employee describes the way things are.''Too much working hours and no recognition.''

2- Affective = feelingis the way how people feel things.''I dislike the work environment.''

3- Behavioral = actionis the way people will behave as a cause of things happened before.

''I decided to talk to the HR department.''These three components are related to each other and in particular cognition and affect. They help to understand the effect of attitudes onchoices and actions that people take. It is important to mention that thesecomponents interact among each other and cannot be separated.

Previous research showed up the relationship between attitudes and behavior. It is logical that attitudes are followed by actions. However, asLeon Festinger said in the late 1960's that attitudes follow behavior.

''People change what they say so it doesnt contradict what they do.'' [2]

Festinger explained attitudes that follow behavior tend to reducecontradiction (dissonance), because he believes that any inconsistency isuncomfortable, and that is why individuals will try to reduce thisinconsistency between attitudes and behavior. But in fact, it is impossibleto completely reduce dissonance.


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H ow do we form A ttitudes?

No one is born with a certain attitudes or tendency toward aspecific thing. As we all know that one person can have numerousattitudes towards several things. Thats means that attitudes are not equal ,it depend on the level of involvement or attachment of the person withthis thing.


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As previously mentioned, there are many attitudes. For this reason,I am going to focus on job attitudes and the relationship between''Attitudes and Job satisfaction.''

Three Major Job Attitudes.

Job satisfaction. Job involvement. Organizational commitment.

1- Job satisfaction is the contentment (or lake it) arising out of interplay of employee's positive and negative feelings toward his or her work. [3]

2- Job involvement is how much the employee is taking part in his or her job. Good leaders, empower their employees by authorizingthem to participate in decisions, in order to make them feel thatthey are there to help in the management of the company andsomehow more important than just receiving orders.

3- Organizational commitment is how much an employee can be loyalto a particular organization. There are three differe nt dimensions to

organizational commitment.

Affective commitment is the emotional attachment. C ontinuance commitment is the perceived economic value thatrelates the employee to a certain organization.

N ormative commitment is the moral or ethical reasons that make anemployee to remain with a certain organization

After discussing Attitudes and Job satisfaction we can figure outthe relationship raised between both of them. If an employee feelsdiscrimination aroused between him and his co-worker from his superior or from other co-workers because of his origin or religion or color (kindof racism), this employee will notice that he is disliked (cognition) , so hewill feel bad (affect) , and as a result he will look for another job (behavior) where the work environment is better than his current job.


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I nterview questions

1. Can you describe your job environment

2. Rate your level of job satisfaction. Justify your answer please.

level of satisfaction

Aspects of current job

Workplace Coworkers Work

hours

Pay Load and

stress

Internal

promotionExtremelysatisfiedSatisfied

Neutral

Dissatisfied

Extremelydissatisfied

If there are any other aspect you feel that can affect the employeeattitudes and the job satisfaction, please mention.

3. What attitude did you formed? How will you behave?

4. What relates you to your current job?


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Theoretical Frame Work

From what I read before, I noticed that previous research proved

that most of the people seek for consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and behavior. As Leon Festinger said, seekingconsistency in attitudes and between attitudes and behavior is reducing

dissonance.

Also they assumed that there is a causal relationship between attitudesand behavior, in other words, the attitudes that people h old towardssomething or someone explain his or her behavior towards this thing or

toward this person.

More modern research came up with proving the attitudes helps only to predict future behavior and they are only slightly related to each other,therefore, we can not set a general rule that says that attitudes come

before behavior or behavior comes first, it depends on the person and onhow he form his attitudes Learning Hierarchy.

Concerning the job attitudes; when we talk about job satisfaction iswhen a person has a positive feeling toward his job. It comes after amental evaluation and after performance. Job involvement is when we

talk about psychological empowerment; it is the degree to which a personis taking part in his job. The level of partic ipation of an employee in

decisions that concerns the company he working for, and strategies.

A good organization should measure its employees satisfaction levelcontinuously. By making questionnaires to push them to express their feelings toward many factors that can affect their satisfaction such as the

pay, the team work, managers, or the companys strategy itself. After clarifying the employees attitudes to the companys management

through these questionnaires, it helps to avoid the turnover rate o f employees and increase their loyalty, also can help in improving their

performance and to avoid problem in work environment.


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How Piraeus does measure the attitudes and the job satisfaction of hisemployees and what Piraeus management is doing to incre ase their

employees satisfaction?

By monitoring their employees, by being involved in their life (i.e. by

taking care about their needs and wants, their children education, the psychological statement, offering a health care and medical insurance for them and their families, retirement insurance etc) and making for thema lot of programs that make them attached to the organization and kind of

creating a family soul between the organization and the employee.


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In the following interview, I used an open ended question to elicit randomanswers for my question from the manager of the credit card department.

How do you feel about your job?I am satisfied about job.

What about your job environment?It is a good environment to perform my job with accuracy,from the sideof team working.

What kind of relation you have with your supervisors?Relation is based on changing ideas,in other words I am involved intaking decisions.My supervisors give me the chance to apply my work strategy.

What about the Group work?Every one of us is a point in a circle, everyone has a task to perform, inothers words we complete each others.We are doing a good job byfollowing and applying the team work definition.

What kind of relation you have with your current job?What relates me to my current job is a moral relationship, I was therewhen we established this department,so it has been g rowing while I was a

part of it, and we shared a lot of emotional, hard, success, critical,

stressful moments so it is not easy to quit and to forget the about this place.


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Recommendations.

I recommend to Piraeus Bank in Egypt to reduce the turnover rate of theemployees. Because it is irrational to sack employees for a change in theorganization structure, or ask them to accept thedowngrade in positions if they do not want lose their jobs.

Piraeus management is good with the psychological empowerment of employees. Piraeus management should keep this strategy and work onimproving it.

Piraeus management should work on making a transparency in theinternal promotional system, because as I found while interviewing their employees that they expected higher positions comparing to what they

offered to their organization.

Otherwise employees there are satisfied, there is kind of balance betweenlevels of satisfaction and level of dissatisfaction in their job but this doesnot mean that their attitudes are positive toward the company.


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Conclusion

A job is more than receiving orders and obeying without contributionin the decisions, more than shuffling papers, waiting for the end of themonth to be paid or waiting for the end of the working day in your officeto leave the building. It requires a soul among co-workers andsupervisors, spiritual soul and positive attitudes inside the organizationthat is raised among the working team that makes them achievetheirhighest performance, even exceed it, and stand the hard moments andthe stressful working condition that any organization pass by.


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Ph ase 2: Motivation (from concepts to application)Y ou are satisfied in your job, persistent in your work, looking forward towakeup every morning go to your office and make an effort in thedirection of the organizational goals. In organizational behavior thisequals a motivated employee.

By definition Motivation is: The processes that accounts for anindividuals intensity, direction and persistence of effort toward attaininga goal.

M otivation has two components: internal needs (intrinsic motivation)and external objects (extrinsic motivation).

Extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards (including besidesmoney other benefits that can satisfy your inner needs) and feedback when you are treated as a human being. In the case in which you are avery important resource, motivation will come from getting paid,

punishment if you break something and critics.

Internal forces that energize and direct you towards your goals representintrinsic motivation. The inner needs do not address only your work environment, but your purpose of living. Therefore there is not always agood fit between what your job requires from you and what you reallyneed.

It is said that incentives play a major role in motivating your employeesand encouraging them to achieve higher goals. In any organization,incentives work because employees are then goal -driven and push

themselves to achieve their targets.However I believe that motivation is not defined only in terms of moneyor vacations, motivation could be in the shape of communication betweenemployees and their employer or even employees among each other, alsocompetition would result in motivation among employees (even in thesame team) in other words competition would produce a positive


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motivational energy in the work place.Also the environment that anorganization form in its own work place would be a form of motivation, amanager could motivate his team by words, or even by be ing a goodexample of exerting an effort in order to achieve organizational goals,

Motivation is one of the key factors that lead to employee productivity, inany organization, human resource is one of the biggest resources that anorganization has, which contributes to its overall growth and profitability.To maximize employee productivity, organizat ions need to focus on twoareas: personal employee motivation and the work environment.

It seems that there are three specific personality characteristics that areimportant in the study of organizational behavior and influence the levelof satisfaction of the employees: locus of control, self -esteem and self-

monitoring.

Locus of control refers to what a person believes that has a good or badinfluence about his/her life. More specific in a work environment: if mostly external factors or internal forces influence the career path.Weak people believe in fate, luck and powerf ul people that can help themon the way. It works if you accept to have your freedom and rights as ahuman being limited. Strong people believe in themselves. Their futureis determined by their career planning process, their actions and

initiatives. These people ask not why you have money, but how did youdo it so I can do it too?

Self-esteem is the result of self-evaluation. A favorable image aboutyourself can make you more resistant to external influences, consequentlymuch more inclined to be perseverant and focused.

Self-monitoring is about self-control or how much of a show you put ininteracting with others. There are jobs that require acting (from my

personal experience, law is one of them) and there are natural actors thathave the wrong job.

Three main personality characteristics should be taken in considerationwhen motivating employees, in order to increase productivity andenhance PERFORMANCE, Motivation is seen in the quantity and quality


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of the effort you put in reaching the goal of the organization. Performanceis how the organization quantifies how closer you are of reaching the goaland how properly they are using motivation .

Connecting attitudes formed by the employees and motivation used by

their own employers, motivation is one of the main aspects affectingattitudes, a good motivated and satisfied employee would tend to act

positively and in favor of the organization and would also exert an effortin order to meet assigned goals, and form a positive attitude of organizational commitment, job involvement and job satisfaction, andvice versa.

That does not mean that motivation is the main and only rea son thatforms attitudes; however, motivation is a must and a main aspect among

others, to form a positive attitude of employees .

Away from theoretically talking, in real life organizations finds thatapplication of the previous comes naturally and in favor of getting closer towards meeting their own goals, for example PIRAEUS BANKculture is based on compensations as a strategy to motiv ate employees inorder to improve productivity and create an employees job satisfaction,involvement and organizational commitment .

Compensation and benefits as stated on the official web-site for PIRAEUS BANK:

The intention of the Piraeus Bank Group is to attract and keep the mostcapable employees. Compensation and benefits schemes provided toemployees play a major role in achieving the above objective. Theobjective is to create competitive structures, as regards both tocompensation and benefits, so as to ensure a high degree of coverage for the needs of employees.

Compensation and benefits schemes are assigned to employees dependingon their job role, experience, abilities and their degree of responsibility.

Moreover, market developments are monit ored continuously so as tomaintain compensation and benefits at competitive levels, while theobjective is to acknowledge and reward additional effort made by eachemployee. For this reason, additional, short -term or long-term, bonus


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schemes have been des igned.

Social Policy Aiming at improving the standard of living for allemployees, Piraeus Bank ensures that it provides competitivecompensation and benefits schemes.

Moreover, the Bank offers its employees a set of extra benefits such asthose presented in the following table:

Free annual check up for all employees in cooperation with theEmployees' Association.

Full coverage of the cost of a Group insurance scheme(hospitalization, medical care, life insurance, accident insurance,permanent total disability insurance).

Coverage of childcare expenses. Rewards to employees children studying at any university in

Greece and abroad. Extra days of leave (motherhood and child hospitalization). Monthly allowance for the transportation of blind and disabled

employees. One-off special benefit for large families. P rivileged price policy.


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R ecommendationsI recommend to Piraeus Bank in Egypt to keep on applying their policyregarding motivation using compensations and other benefits toemployees, also to create a happy working place and a positiveenvironment for the employees


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R eferences

Electronic References:

www.tip.psychology.org/attitude.html

www.businessdictionary.com/definition/job-satisfaction.html

www.research.berkeley.edu/ucday/abstract.html

http://www.piraeusbank.gr/ecpage.asp?id=233249&nt=19&lang=2

http://www.motivatingemployees.org/

Academic References:

Organizational Behavior, 14 th edition, Stephen P. Robbins, TimothyA. Judge.

Consumer Behavior


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Appendix

Here we have two chapters from two different books thatdiscuss the attitudes and job satisfactionWe have the Interview questionsInterview answersSome other electronic references

what are attitudes

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