Attitude

Following are the salient features which contribute to the meaning of attitudes:

1. Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals. For example He
has a poor attitude, I like her attitude.

2. The feelings and beliefs are directed towards other people, objects or ideas. When a person
says, I like my Job. It shows that he has a positive attitude towards his job.

3. Attitudes often result in and affect the behaviour or action of the people. Attitudes can lead to
intended behaviour if there are no external interventions.

4. Attitudes constitute a psychological phenomenon which cannot be directly observed.

However, an attitude can be observed indirectly by observing its consequences. For example, if a
person is very regular in his job, we may infer that he likes his job very much.

5. Attitudes are gradually acquired over a period of time. The process of learning attitude starts
right from childhood and continues throughout the life of a person. In the beginning the family
members may have a greater impact on the attitude of a child.

6. Attitudes are evaluative statements, either favourable or unfavourable. When a person says he
likes or dislikes something or somebody, an attitude is being expressed.

7. All people, irrespective of their status and intelligence hold attitudes.

8. An attitude may be unconsciously held. Most of our attitudes may be about those which we
are not clearly aware. Prejudice furnishes a good example.

Our behavior at work often depends on how we feel about being there. Therefore, making sense
of how people behave depends on understanding their work attitudes. An attitude refers to our
opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment. We have attitudes toward the
food we eat, people we interact with, courses we take, and various other things. At work, two
particular job attitudes have the greatest potential to influence how we behave. These are job
satisfaction and organizational commitment. Job satisfaction refers to the feelings people have
toward their job. If the number of studies conducted on job satisfaction is an indicator, job
satisfaction is probably the most important job attitude. Institutions such as Gallup Inc. or the
Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) periodically conduct studies of job
satisfaction to track how satisfied employees are at work. According to a recent Gallup survey,
90% of the employees surveyed said that they were at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs.
The recent SHRM study revealed 40% who were very satisfied. [1]Organizational commitment is
the emotional attachment people have toward the company they work for. There is a high degree
of overlap between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, because things that make us
happy with our job often make us more committed to the company as well. Companies believe
that these attitudes are worth tracking because they are often associated with important outcomes
such as performance, helping others, absenteeism, and turnover.
How strong is the attitude-behavior link? First of all, it depends on the attitude in question. Your
attitudes toward your colleagues may influence whether you actually help them on a project, but
they may not be a good predictor of whether you will quit your job. Second, it is worth noting
that attitudes are more strongly related to intentions to behave in a certain way, rather than actual
behaviors. When you are dissatisfied with your job, you may have the intention to leave.
Whether you will actually leave is a different story! Your leaving will depend on many factors,
such as availability of alternative jobs in the market, your employability in a different company,
and sacrifices you have to make while changing jobs. In other words, while attitudes give us
hints about how a person might behave, it is important to remember that behavior is also strongly
influenced by situational constraints.

Types of Attitudes
1) Job Satisfaction
A collection of positive and/or negative feelings that an individual holds towards his or
her job.
2) Job Involvement
Identifying with the job, actively participating in it, and considering performance
important to self-worth.
3) Organizational Commitment
Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, and wishing to maintain
membership in the organization
 Affective, normative, and continuance commitment Note: what are these? Why are
they different? Please be sure you know J
4) Perceived Organizational Support
Degree to which employees feel the organization cares about their well-being.
5) Employee Engagement
An individuals involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the
organization.

Components of Attitudes:

Attitudes comprise of three basic components: emotional, informational and behavioural.

These three components are described below:

1. Informational or Cognitive Component:The informational component consists of beliefs,

values, ideas and other information a person has about the object. It makes no difference whether
or not this information is empirically correct or real. For example, a person seeking a job may
learn from his own sources and other employees working in the company that in a particular
company the promotion chances are very favourable. In reality, it may or may not be correct. Yet
the information that person is using is the key to his attitude about that job and about that
company.

2. Emotional or Affective Component:The informational component sets the stage for the more
critical part of an attitude, its affective component. The emotional components involve the
persons feeling or affect-positive, neutral or negative-about an object. This component can be
explained by this statement. I like this job because the future prospects in this company are very
good.

3. Behavioural Component:The behavioural component consists of the tendency of a person to

behave in a particular manner towards an object. For example, the concerned individual in the
above case may decide to take up the job because of good future prospects. Out of the three
components of attitudes, only the behavioural component can be directly observed. One cannot
see another persons beliefs (the informational component) and his feelings (the emotional
component). These two components can only be inferred. But still understanding these two
components is essential in the study of organisational behaviour or the behavioural component of
attitudes.

ABC Model of Attitude:

All the three components of attitude explained above constitute, what is OF called the ABC
model. Here, in the ABC model, the alphabet A stands for Affective component, B for
Behavioural and C for the cognitive component. The importance of this model is that to have a
proper and thorough understanding of the concept of attitude, all the three components
mentioned above must be properly assessed. It is only the behavioural component which can be
directly observed, the other two components: affective and cognitive can however only be
inferred.

Formation/Sources of Attitudes:

Attitudes refer to the feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals. But the
question is how these feelings and beliefs developed? The point which has been stressed by
many people are that attitudes are acquired, but not inherited. A person acquires these attitudes
from several sources.

The Attitudes are acquired but not important sources of acquiring attitudes are as discussed
below:

1. Direct Personal Experience:A persons direct experience with the attitude object determines
his attitude towards it. The personal experience of an individual, whether it is favourable or
unfavourable, will affect his attitude deeply. These attitudes which are based on personal
experience are difficult to change.For example, an individual joins a new job, which is
recommended to him by his friend. But when he joins the job, he find his work repetitive,
supervisors too tough and co-workers not so co-operative, he would develop a negative attitude
towards his job, because the quality of his direct experience with the job is negative.

2. Association:Sometimes an individual comes across a new attitude object which may be

associated with an old attitude object. In such a case, the attitude towards the old attitude object
may be transferred towards the new attitude object. For example, if a new worker remains most
of the time in the company of a worker, who is in the good books of the supervisor, and towards
whom the supervisor has a positive attitude, the supervisor is likely to develop a favourable
attitude towards the new worker also. Hence the positive attitude for the old worker has been
transferred towards the new worker because of the association between the old and the new
worker.

3. Family and Peer Groups:Attitudes like values are acquired from parents, teachers and peer
group members. In our early years, we begin modeling our attitudes after those we admire,
respect or may be even fear. We observe the way our family and friends behave and we shape
our attitudes and behaviour to align with theirs. We do so even without being told to do so and
even without having direct experience. Similarly, attitudes are acquired from peer groups in
colleges and organisations. For example, if the right thing is to visit Hot Millions, or the
Dominos, you are likely to hold that attitude. If your parents support one political party,
without being told to do so, you automatically start favouring that party.

4. Neighbourhood:The neighbourhood in which we live has certain cultural facilities, religious

groupings and ethnic differences. Further, it has people, who are neighbours. These people may
be Northerners, Southerners etc. The people belonging to different cultures have different
attitudes and behaviours. Some of these we accept and some of these we deny and possibly rebel.
The conformity or rebellion in some respects is the evidence of the attitudes we hold.

5. Economic Status and Occupations:The economic status and occupational position of the
individual also affect his attitude formation. Our socio-economic background influences our
present and future attitudes. Research findings have shown that unemployment disturbs former
religious and economic values. Children of professional class tend to be conservatives. Respect
for the laws of the country is associated with increased years of higher education.

6. Mass Communications:Attitudes are generally less stable as compared to values. Advertising

messages for example, attempt to alter the attitude of the people toward a certain product or
service. For example, if the people at Hyundai Santro can get you to hold a favourable feeling
toward their cars, that attitude may lead to a desirable behaviour (for them)-your purchase of a
Santro car.
What Causes Positive Work Attitudes?
What makes you satisfied with your job and develop commitment to your company? Research
shows that people pay attention to several aspects of their work environment, including how they
are treated, the relationships they form with colleagues and managers, and the actual work they
perform. We will now summarize the factors that show consistent relations with job satisfaction
and organizational commitment.

Personality
Can assessing the work environment fully explain how satisfied we are on the job? Interestingly,
some experts have shown that job satisfaction is not purely environmental and is partially due to
our personality. Some people have a disposition to be happy in life and at work regardless of
environmental factors.

It seems that people who have a positive affective disposition (those who have a tendency to
experience positive moods more often than negative moods) tend to be more satisfied with their
jobs and more committed to their companies, while those who have a negative disposition tend to
be less satisfied and less committed. [2] This is not surprising, as people who are determined to
see the glass as half full will notice the good things in their work environment, while those with
the opposite character will find more things to complain about. In addition to our affective
disposition, people who have a neurotic personality (those who are moody, temperamental,
critical of themselves and others) are less satisfied with their job, while those who are
emotionally more stable tend to be more satisfied. Other traits such as conscientiousness, self-
esteem, locus of control, and extraversion are also related to positive work attitudes. [3] Either
these people are more successful in finding jobs and companies that will make them happy and
build better relationships at work, which would increase their satisfaction and commitment, or
they simply see their environment as more positivewhichever the case, it seems that
personality is related to work attitudes.
PersonEnvironment Fit
The fit between what we bring to our work environment and the environmental demands
influences our work attitudes. Therefore, personjob fit and personorganization fit are
positively related to job satisfaction and commitment. When our abilities match job demands and
our values match company values, we tend to be more satisfied with our job and more committed
to the company we work for. [4]
Job Characteristics
The presence of certain characteristics on the job seems to make employees more satisfied and
more committed. Using a variety of skills, having autonomy at work, receiving feedback on the
job, and performing a significant task are some job characteristics that are related to satisfaction
and commitment. However, the presence of these factors is not important for everyone. Some
people have a high growth need. They expect their jobs to help them build new skills and
improve as an employee. These people tend to be more satisfied when their jobs have these
characteristics. [5]
Psychological Contract
After accepting a job, people come to work with a set of expectations. They have an
understanding of their responsibilities and rights. In other words, they have a psychological
contract with the company. A psychological contract is an unwritten understanding about what
the employee will bring to the work environment and what the company will provide in
exchange. When people do not get what they expect, they experience a psychological contract
breach, which leads to low job satisfaction and commitment. Imagine that you were told before
being hired that the company was family friendly and collegial. However, after a while, you
realize that they expect employees to work 70 hours a week, and employees are aggressive
toward each other. You are likely to experience a breach in your psychological contract and be
dissatisfied. One way of preventing such problems is for companies to provide realistic job
previews to their employees. [6]
Organizational Justice
A strong influence over our satisfaction level is how fairly we are treated. People pay attention to
the fairness of company policies and procedures, treatment from supervisors, and pay and other
rewards they receive from the company. [7]
Relationships at Work
Two strong predictors of our happiness at work and commitment to the company are our
relationships with coworkers and managers. The people we interact with, their degree of
compassion, our level of social acceptance in our work group, and whether we are treated with
respect are all important factors surrounding our happiness at work. Research also shows that our
relationship with our manager, how considerate the manager is, and whether we build a trust-
based relationship with our manager are critically important to our job satisfaction and
organizational commitment. [8] When our manager and upper management listen to us, care
about us, and value our opinions, we tend to feel good at work. Even small actions may show
employees that the management cares about them. For example, Hotel Carlton in San Francisco
was recently taken over by a new management group. One of the small things the new
management did created dramatic results. In response to an employee attitude survey, they
replaced the old vacuum cleaners housekeepers were using and established a policy of replacing
them every year. This simple act of listening to employee problems and taking action went a
long way to making employees feel that the management cares about them. [9]
Stress
Not surprisingly, the amount of stress present in our job is related to our satisfaction and
commitment. For example, experiencing role ambiguity (vagueness in relation to what our
responsibilities are), role conflict (facing contradictory demands at work), and organizational
politics, and worrying about the security of our job are all stressors that make people dissatisfied.
On the other hand, not all stress is bad. Some stressors actually make us happier! For example,
working under time pressure and having a high degree of responsibility are stressful, but they can
also be perceived as challenges and tend to be related to high levels of satisfaction. [10]
WorkLife Balance
In the 1950s, peoples work was all-consuming. Employees went to work, worked long hours,
and the rest of the family accepted that work came first. As society changed, the concept of
always putting work first became outdated. In modern times, more employees expect to lead
balanced lives, pursue hobbies, and spend more time with their children while at the same time
continuing to succeed at work. The notion of workfamily conflict is one cause of job
dissatisfaction. This conflict can be particularly strong for women because of the time necessary
for pregnancy and giving birth, but men struggle with it as well. When work life interferes with
family life, we are more stressed and unhappy with our jobs. Research shows that policies that
help employees achieve a balance between their work and personal lives, such as allowing
telecommuting, are related to higher job satisfaction. For example, the medical resources group
of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca International does not have fixed working hours,
and employees can work any hours they choose. Motorolas technological acceleration group
also has flexible hours and can work from anywhere (home, office, or a coffee shop) at anytime.

Consequences of Positive Work Attitudes

Why do we care about the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees? What
behaviors would you expect to see from someone who has more positive work attitudes?

If you say higher performance, you have stumbled upon one of the most controversial subjects
in organizational behavior. Many studies have been devoted to understanding whether happy
employees are more productive. Some studies show weak correlations between satisfaction and
performance while others show higher correlations (what researchers would call medium-sized
correlations of 0.30). The correlation between commitment and performance tends to be even
weaker.]Even with a correlation of 0.30 though, the relationship may be lower than you may
have expected. Why is this so?
It seems that happy workers have an inclination to be more engaged at work. They may want to
perform better. They may be more motivated. But there are also exceptions. Think about this:
Just because you want to perform, will you actually be a higher performer? Chances are that your
skill level in performing the job will matter. There are also some jobs where performance
depends on factors beyond an employees control, such as the pace of the machine they are
working on. Because of this reason, in professional jobs such as engineering and research, we see
a higher link between work attitudes and performance, as opposed to manual jobs such as
assembly line work. Also, think about the alternative possibility: If you dont like your job, does
this mean that you will reduce your performance? Maybe up to a certain point, but there will be
factors that prevent you from reducing your performance: the fear of getting fired, the desire to
get a promotion so that you can get out of the job that you dislike so much, or your professional
work ethic. As a result, we should not expect a one-to-one relationship between satisfaction and
performance. Still, the observed correlation between work attitudes and performance is important
and has practical value.
Work attitudes are even more strongly related to organizational citizenship behaviors (behaviors
that are not part of our job but are valuable to the organization, such as helping new employees
or working voluntary overtime). Satisfied and committed people are absent less frequently and
for shorter duration, are likely to stay with a company longer, and demonstrate less aggression at
work. Just as important, people who are happy at work are happier with their lives overall. Given
that we spend so much of our waking hours at work, it is no surprise that our satisfaction with
our job is a big part of how satisfied we feel about life in general.[15] Finally, a satisfied
workforce seems to be related to positive firm-level outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and
loyalty, profitability, and safety in the workplace.

Assessing Work Attitudes in the Workplace

Given that work attitudes may give us clues as to who will leave or stay, who will perform better,
and who will be more engaged, tracking satisfaction and commitment levels is a helpful step for
companies. If there are companywide issues that make employees unhappy and disengaged, then
these issues need to be resolved. There are at least two systematic ways in which companies can
track work attitudes: through attitude surveys and exit interviews. Companies such as KFC
Corporation and Long John Silvers Inc. restaurants, the SAS Institute, Google, and others give
periodic surveys to employees to track their work attitudes. Companies can get more out of these
surveys if responses are held confidential. If employees become concerned that their individual
responses will be shared with their immediate manager, they are less likely to respond honestly.
Moreover, the success of these surveys depends on the credibility of management in the eyes of
employees. If management periodically collects these surveys but no action comes out of them,
employees may adopt a more cynical attitude and start ignoring these surveys, hampering the
success of future efforts.
An exit interview involves a meeting with the departing employee. This meeting is often
conducted by a member of the human resource management department. The departing
employees manager is the worst person to conduct the interview, because managers are often
one of the primary reasons an employee is leaving in the first place. If conducted well, this
meeting may reveal what makes employees dissatisfied at work and give management clues
about areas for improvement.

Measurement of Attitudes:

Undoubtedly the attitudes of people tend to be relatively stable but can always be notified at least
to some extent. Certain difference in employees attitudes is inevitable and is responsible for the
effectiveness of individuals within an organisation. There are certain ways by which it is possible
for the supervisor and managers to get some inkling of attitudes of individuals such as listening
to the chance remarks of individuals, the behaviour of individuals in the work place etc.

A sensitive intuitive supervisor can always get a feeling with respect to the general reaction of
his work group even though he cannot pinpoint such reactions specifically. The other way to find
attitude change is the analysis of certain factors such as turnover rate, absenteeism and
production level. Various methods have been developed for doing this.

A few of these are as explained below:

1. Thurston Attitude Scale:This method consists of questionnaires which are filled out by the
employees.To develop an attitude scale the following steps are involved:

(i) The first step is to write out a large number of statements, each of which expresses a
viewpoint of some kind towards the company.

(ii) Each of these statements is typed on a separate slip of paper and the judge is asked to place
each statement in one of several piles (usually 7, 9 or 11) ranging from statement judged to
express the least favourable view points to statements judged to express the most favourable
viewpoints (7, 9 or 11).

(iii) Statements judged to express varying degrees of favourable-ness in between these extremes
are placed in the piles that are judged best to characterize their relative degree of favourable-
ness.

(iv) Many judges are used in the process, sometimes as many as 100 or more. These judges are
assisting the construction of the scale. They are not having their attitudes measured. The
allocation of statements to the several piles is a part of the process of constructing the scale.

The purpose of allocation is to determine the scale value of the various statements. If all judges
tend to place a statement in piles towards the favourable then we can conclude that the statement
expresses a favourable attitude towards the company. If the statement is placed by the judges in
piles towards unfavourable end of the series, then we may conclude that an unfavourable attitude
is expressed by that particular statement. So we can determine the average location of the
statement by the judge. Statements that are scattered by the judge over several categories are
eliminated.

The use of different statements in scales measuring the same attitude helps in checking results by
a repeat test in order to be sure of conclusion reached and to measure the effectiveness of
systematic company effort to improve employee morale.

2. Likert Scale:Likerts method is simpler than Thurstone method and does not require the use of
judges in scaling the statements. While a number of different procedures were tried and
compared but the simplest method described by Likert was found to give results that correlated
very highly with more complex methods.

Each statement has five degrees of approval and asks the person taking the scale to check one of
the five degrees:

Strongly approved, Approved, Undecided, Disapproved, Strongly disapproved.

There are three principal methods of establishing the validity of a measuring device:

(i) Comparing the results obtained from it with those of another device, the validity of which has
been established.

(ii) Judgment of experts and

(iii) Internal consistency

The validity of the Likert scale established by a comparison of the same with an already
established scale of Thurston is an example of judgment technique adopted.

3. Opinions Surveys:

Attitude scales help to measure the attitudes of individuals by summarising data for all
employees within a group, such scale can be used to quantify morale of employee groups.
Attitude scales can be useful in indicating the relative level of morale of employees group, but
these do not enable the management to identify specific factors that may be sources of
employees unrest or un-satisfaction. This specific information can be obtained by the use of
questionnaire that provides for giving opinions about specific matters such as working
conditions, future prospects, company policies, perquisites etc. The usual practice in opinion
questionnaire is that of obtaining a single response to each question in either yes or no. In
particular, the employees may be asked to check each item in one of the three boxes.

He should also check each item as being of great importance. It is possible to develop a
questionnaire that can serve the purposes of obtaining opinions of employees and measuring
their attitudes. The data collected by the questionnaires can be compiled, tabulated and analyzed
to know about the attitude of workers towards management and the organisation.

4. Interviews:

Still another method of obtaining information about personnel reaction is the use of interviews.
The workers should be interviewed by the representatives of some outside organisations such as
a consultancy firm or a university department. The employees are given assurance that the
information furnished will not be used for any administrative function. In a guided interview, the
interviewer asks a series of questions so that each of which may be answered by a simple. Yes or
No or by some other words or phrases. In the unguided interview, the interviewer asks more
general questions to encourage the employee to express himself and solicit information about his
job satisfaction, job involvement and job commitment.