On Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

on ATTITUDES and JOB SATISFACTION AN INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR By: Stephen Robbins & Timothy Judge Prepared by: GREGAR DONAVEN E. VALDEHUEZA, MBA Lourdes College Instructor

Learning Objectives:
Contrast the three components of an attitude
Identify the role consistency plays in attitudes
Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior
Discuss similarities and differences between job satisfaction and the other job attitudes discussed
Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction
Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction

ATTITUDES
evaluative statements (either favorable or unfavorable) concerning objects, people, or events.
reflect how one feels about something.
ex: “I like my job.”

Six questions that will help understand attitude:
What are the main components of attitudes?
How consistent are attitudes?
Does behavior always follow after attitudes?
What are the major job attitudes?
How are employee attitudes measured?
What is the importance of attitudes to workplace diversity?

the components of attitudes Cognitive = evaluation My superior gave a promotion to a coworker who deserved it less than me. My supervisor is unfair. Affective = feeling I dislike my supervisor! Behavioral = action I’m looking for other work; I’ve complained about my supervisor to anyone who would listen. Negative attitude toward supervisor

Cognitive component of an attitude
The opinion or belief segment of an attitude
Affective component of an attitude
The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude
Behavioral component of an attitude
An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something

Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior.
This means that individuals seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and align their attitudes and behavior so they appear rational and consistent.
ex: a certain college girl believes that sororities are good and that pledging a sorority is important. If she fails to make a sorority, however, she may say, “I recognized that sorority life isn’t all good anyway.”
When there is inconsistency, forces are initiated to return the individual to an equilibrium state in which attitudes and behavior are again consistent. This can be done by altering either the attitudes or the behavior, or by developing a rationalization for the discrepancy.

Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger)
Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.
Determinants in coping dissonance proposed by Festinger:
Importance of the elements creating the dissonance.
Influence the individual believes he/she has over the elements.
Rewards that may be involved in dissonance.

Early research on attitudes assumed that they were causally related to behavior; that is, the attitudes that people hold determine what they do.

However, in the late 1960s, this assumed relationship between attitudes and behavior was challenged by a review of the research. Based on an evaluation of a number of studies that investigated the attitude-behavior relationship, the reviewer concluded that attitudes were unrelated to behavior or, at best, only slightly related.

More recent research has demonstrated that attitudes significantly predict future behavior and confirmed Festinger’s original belief that the relationship can be enhanced by taking moderating variables into account.

The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior relationship have been found to be:
Importance of the attitude (fundamental values, self-interest, identification with the individuals/groups that a person values)
Its specificity
Its accessibility
whether there exist:
Social pressures
Direct experience
moderating variables

self-perception theory
Self-perception argues that attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has already occurred rather than as devices that precede and guide action.
- attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has already occurred.

Job satisfaction
A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
Job involvement
The degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and considers performance important to self-worth.
Closely related concept is psychological empowerment which is employees’ belief in the degree to which they impact their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and the perceived autonomy in their work.

Organizational commitment
The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.
Three separate dimensions:
Affective commitment – an emotional attachment to the organization and a belief in its values.
Continuance commitment – the perceived economic value of remaining with an organization compared to leaving it.
Normative commitment – an obligation to remain with the organization for moral or ethical reasons.

Other job attitudes:
Perceived Organizational Support (POS) – the degree to which employees believe the organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being.
Employee engagement – an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work they do.

attitude surveys
Eliciting responses from employees through questionnaires on how they feel about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, and the organization.
employee behaviors are based on perceptions, not reality.

Diversity Programs
Almost all include a self-evaluation phase
People are pressed to examine themselves and to confront ethic and cultural stereotypes they might hold.
Participants typically take part in group discussions or panels with representatives from diverse groups
Arranging for people to do volunteer work in community or social service centers
In order to meet face to face with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds and using exercises that let participants feel what it’s like to be different.

JOB SATISFACTION A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

measuring job satisfaction
a person’s job is more than just the obvious activities of shuffling papers, writing programming code, waiting on customers, or driving a truck. Jobs require interaction with coworkers and bosses, following organizational rules and policies, meeting performance standards, living with working conditions that are often less than ideal, and the like.

Single global rating
Is a method nothing more than asking individuals to respond to one question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?”
Summation of job facets
More sophisticated method. It identifies key elements in a job and asks for the employee’s feelings about each. Typical factors that would be included are the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relations with coworkers.

how satisfied are people in their jobs?
people are on average satisfied with their jobs overall, with the work itself, and with their supervisors and coworkers. However, they tend to be less satisfied with their pay and with promotion opportunities.

what causes job satisfaction?
the major job satisfaction facets (work itself, pay, advancement opportunities, supervision, coworkers), enjoying the work itself is almost always the facet most strongly correlated with high levels of overall job satisfaction.

how about personality?
personality plays a role. Research has shown that people who have a negative personality are usually less satisfied with their jobs.
how about pay? people who are poor or who live in poor countries, pay does correlate with job satisfaction and with overall happiness. But once an individual reaches a level of comfortable living, the relationship virtually disappears. What motivates us is not necessarily the same as what makes us happy.

the impact of dissatisfied and satisfied employees on the workplace
Exit
Dissatisfaction expressed through behavior directed toward leaving the organization.
Voice
Dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to improve conditions.
Loyalty
Dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to improve.
Neglect
Dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen.

Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables (productivity, absenteeism, and turnover).
Voice and loyalty are constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions.

responses to job dissatisfaction NEGLECT LOYALTY EXIT VOICE Destructive Constructive Passive Active

job satisfaction & job performance
When satisfaction and productivity data are gathered for the organization as a whole, we find that organizations with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than organizations with fewer satisfied employees.
job satisfaction & organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) Satisfied employees would seem more likely to talk positively about the organization, help others, and go beyond the normal expectations in their job. More recent evidence however, suggests that satisfaction influences OCB, but through perceptions of fairness.

job satisfaction & customer satisfaction
The evidence indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Dissatisfied customers can increase an employee’s job dissatisfaction.
job satisfaction & absenteeism
A consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism, but the correlation is moderate to weak.

job satisfaction & turnover
Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. Evidence indicates that an important moderator of the satisfaction-turnover relationship is the employee’s level of performance. Level of satisfaction is less important in predicting turnover for superior performers.
job satisfaction & workplace deviance
Job dissatisfaction predicts a lot of specific behaviors, including unionization attempts, substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, and tardiness.
If employers want to control the undesirable consequences of job dissatisfaction, they had best attack the source of the problem – dissatisfaction – rather than trying to control the different responses.

THE END - any clarifications ?

On Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

by Gregar Donaven Valdehueza

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