Chapter
Learning Objectives
Ø After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
– Contrast the three components of an attitude.
– Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
– Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
– Define job satisfaction and show how it can be measured.
– Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.
– Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction.
– Show whether job satisfaction is a relevant concept in
countries other than the United States.
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Attitudes
Evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable -
or judgments concerning objects, people, or events. They
reflect how we feel about something.
Three components of an attitude:
The emotional or
Affective
Cognitive feeling segment
of an attitude
The opinion or
belief segment of Behavioral
an attitude
An intention to behave
in a certain way toward
someone or something
Attitude
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Установки
Ø Определение
ü Благоприятное или неблагоприятное оценочное
суждение на что-либо или кого-либо, которое
выражается в мнениях, чувствах и поведении.
ü Психологическое состояние предрасположенности
субъекта к определенной деятельности в
определенной ситуации
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Attitudes
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Does behavior always follow from attitudes?
Ø Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is sometimes true! -
He argued that attitudes follow behavior.
Ø Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two
or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes
– Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or
dissonance, to reach stability and consistency
– Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes,
modifying the behaviors, or through rationalization
– Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:
• Importance of elements
• Degree of individual influence
• Rewards involved in dissonance
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Moderating Variables
Ø The most powerful moderators of the attitude-
behavior relationship are:
– Importance of the attitude
– Correspondence to behavior
– Accessibility
– Existence of social pressures
– Personal and direct experience of the attitude.
Attitudes Predict Behavior
Moderating Variables
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Accessibility
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Attitudes predict behavior
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Predicting Behavior from Attitudes
– Important attitudes have a strong relationship to behavior.
– The closer the match between attitude and behavior, the stronger the
relationship:
• Specific attitudes predict specific behavior
• General attitudes predict general behavior
– The more frequently expressed an attitude, the better predictor it is.
– High social pressures reduce the relationship and may cause
dissonance.
– Attitudes based on personal experience are stronger predictors.
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Major Job Attitudes
Ø Job Satisfaction
– A positive feeling about the job resulting from an evaluation
of its characteristics
Ø Job Involvement
– Degree of psychological identification with the job where
perceived performance is important to self-worth
Ø Psychological Empowerment
– Belief in the degree of influence over the job, competence, job
meaningfulness, and autonomy
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Another Major Job Attitude
Ø Organizational Commitment
– Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, while
wishing to maintain membership in the organization.
– Three dimensions:
• Affective – emotional attachment to organization
• Continuance Commitment – economic value of staying
• Normative - moral or ethical obligations
– Has some relation to performance, especially for new
employees.
– Less important now than in past – now perhaps more of
occupational commitment, loyalty to profession rather than a
given employer.
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More Major Job Attitudes…
Ø Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
– Degree to which employees believe the organization values
their contribution and cares about their well-being.
– Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in
decision-making, and supervisors are seen as supportive.
– High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance.
Ø Employee Engagement
– The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the job.
– Engaged employees are passionate about their work and
company.
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Job Satisfaction
Ø One of the primary job attitudes measured.
– Broad term involving a complex individual summation of a
number of discrete job elements.
Ø How to measure?
– Single global rating (one question/one answer) - Best
– Summation score (many questions/one average) - OK
Ø Are people satisfied in their jobs?
– In the U. S., yes, but the level appears to be dropping.
– Results depend on how job satisfaction is measured.
– Pay and promotion are the most problematic elements.
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Causes of Job Satisfaction
Ø Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.
– After about $40,000 a year (in the U. S.), there is no
relationship between amount of pay and job satisfaction.
– Money may bring happiness, but not necessarily job
satisfaction.
Ø Personality can influence job satisfaction.
– Negative people are usually not satisfied with their jobs.
– Those with positive core self-evaluation are more satisfied
with their jobs.
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Employee Responses to Dissatisfaction
Active
Exit Voice
• Behavior • Active and
directed constructive
toward leaving attempts to
the improve
organization conditions
Destructive Constructive
Neglect Loyalty
• Allowing • Passively
conditions to waiting for
worsen conditions to
improve
Passive
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Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Ø Job Performance
– Satisfied workers are more productive AND more
productive workers are more satisfied!
– The causality may run both ways.
Ø Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
– Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions of
fairness.
Ø Customer Satisfaction
– Satisfied frontline employees increase customer
satisfaction and loyalty.
Ø Absenteeism
– Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss
work.
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More Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Ø Turnover
– Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
– Many moderating variables in this relationship.
• Economic environment and tenure
• Organizational actions taken to retain high performers and to
weed out lower performers
Ø Workplace Deviance
– Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize, abuse
substances, steal, be tardy, and withdraw.
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Summary and Managerial Implications
Ø Managers should watch employee attitudes:
– They give warnings of potential problems
– They influence behavior
Ø Managers should try to increase job satisfaction and
generate positive job attitudes
– Reduces costs by lowering turnover, absenteeism, tardiness,
theft, and increasing OCB
Ø Focus on the intrinsic parts of the job: make work
challenging and interesting
– Pay is not enough
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