Work Attitudes

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Attitudes
 Attitude
 Persistent tendency to feel and behave in
a favorable or unfavorable way toward a
specific person, object, or idea.
 Attitudes are evaluative statements—
either favorable or unfavorable—about
objects, people, or events.
 They reflect how we feel about something.

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Two Influences on
Attitude Formation
Attitudes are learned:

1. Direct Experience
2. Social Learning

the process of deriving attitudes from

family, peer groups, religious
organizations, and culture.

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Components of Work Attitudes
 Attitudes have 3 components :

 Cognitive - opinion or belief

 Affective – emotional & feeling
 Behavioral – intention to behavior
toward something

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 Components of Work Attitudes

Affective Component

Cognitive Component Work Attitudes

Behavioral Component

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 ABC Model of an Attitude
Component Measured by Example

ffect Physiological indicators. I don’t like my

A Verbal statements boss.
about feelings.
ehavioral Observed behavior. I want to
B intentions Verbal statements transfer to
about intentions. another dept.
ognition Attitude scales . I believe my
C Verbal statements boss plays
about beliefs. favorites.
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 Attitudes
 Three important conclusions about attitudes:
 Attitudes are reasonable stable.
 Attitudes are directed toward some person, object or
idea.
 An attitude toward an object or person relates to one’s
behavior toward that object or person. That is, attitudes
may influence our actions. For example, if an employee
dislikes his work (an attitude), he may show up late for
work (tardiness behavior) or may avoid coming to work
(absenteeism behavior), or exert very little effort in
work (poor productivity behavior).
The Link between Attitudes & Behavior
 If you believe in justice, would you be fair in
evaluating and rewarding your employees?
 If you have a favorable attitude towards
empowerment, would you provide autonomy to
your employees in doing their jobs?
 A major area of research is to examine what and
when attitudes would predict behaviors and when
they would not.
 Managers are concerned about the attitudes of
employees because they can be major causes of
work behaviors. Positive attitudes frequently lead
to productive efforts, whereas negative attitudes
often produce poor work habits.

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Work-Related Attitudes
 Important work-related attitudes
include:
 Job satisfaction
 Job Involvement
 Organizational commitment
 Perceived organizational support
 Employee engagement

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 Job Satisfaction

Job Satisfaction – a pleasurable or positive

emotional state resulting from the appraisal
of one’s job or job experience.
A positive feeling about the job resulting
from an evaluation of its characteristics.
 A person with high job satisfaction holds

positive feelings about the work, while a

person with low satisfaction holds negative
feelings.

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Job Involvement
 The degree to which people identify
psychologically with their jobs and
consider their perceived
performance levels important to
their self-worth.
 Employees with high job involvement
strongly identify with and really care
about the kind of work they do.

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Organization Commitment
 The degree to which an employee identifies
with a particular organization and its goals
and wishes to maintain membership in the
organization.
 Employees who are committed will be less
likely to engage in work withdrawal even if
they are dissatisfied because they have a
sense of organizational loyalty or
attachment.

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Perceived Organizational Support
 Perceived organizational support
(POS) is the degree to which employees
believe the organization values their
contributions and cares about their
wellbeing.
 People perceive their organizations as
supportive when rewards are deemed fair,
when employees have a voice in decisions,
and when they see their supervisors as
supportive.

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Employee Engagement
 Employee engagement is an individual’s
involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the work he or she does.
 Highly engaged employees have a passion
for their work and feel a deep connection to
their companies;
 Disengaged employees have essentially
checked out, putting time but not energy or
attention into their work.

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Employee Engagement
 To evaluate engagement, we might
ask employees (1)whether they have
access to resources and
opportunities to learn new skills, (2)
whether they feel their work is
important and meaningful,
 and (3) whether interactions with
coworkers and supervisors are
rewarding.

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Compare the Major Job Attitudes
 Are these job attitudes really all that
distinct or unique?
 No, these attitudes are highly

correlated; and while there is some

distinction, there is also a lot of overlap
that may cause confusion. Ex: JS overlap
with Engagement & Commitment
 Researchers are trying to find ways to

measure the different attitudes in

order to get at their distinctiveness.

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 The Importance of Job Satisfaction

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Job Satisfaction
 When people speak of employee
attitudes, they usually mean job
satisfaction.
 Because OB researchers give job
satisfaction high importance, we’ll
review this attitude in more detail.

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Main Causes of Job Satisfaction
 What causes job satisfaction?
 Job conditions

 The intrinsic nature of the work itself, social

interactions, and supervision are important

predictors of job satisfaction.
 Personality

 People who have positive core self-

evaluations, who believe in their inner worth

and basic competence, are more satisfied with
their jobs than those with negative core self-
evaluations.

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Main Causes of Job Satisfaction
 Pay

 Correlate with job satisfaction &

overall happiness, but the effect
be smaller when individual
reaches standard level of
comfortable living
 Money does motivate people, but

what motivates us is not the

same as what makes us happy.

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Main Causes of Job Satisfaction
 Corporate social responsibility
(CSR): self-regulated actions to
benefit society or the environment
beyond what is required by law.
 Includes environmental sustainability

initiatives, nonprofit work, and charitable

giving.
 Increasingly affects employee job

satisfaction, particularly for

Millennials.

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Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
 Job Performance
 Happy workers are more likely to be

productive workers.
 Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
 People who are more satisfied with their jobs

are more likely to engage in OCB.

 Customer Satisfaction
 Satisfied employees increase customer

satisfaction and loyalty.

 Life Satisfaction
 Research shows that job satisfaction is

positively correlated with life satisfaction.

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Four Employee Responses to
Dissatisfaction

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Four Employee Responses to
Dissatisfaction
 4 responses based on 2 dimensions:
 Constructive/destructive and active/passive.
 The 4 responses are:
1. Exit. The exit response directs behavior toward

leaving the organization, including looking for a

new position or resigning.
2. Voice. The voice response includes actively
and constructively attempting to improve
conditions, including suggesting improvements,
discussing problems with superiors, and
undertaking union activity.

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Four Employee Responses to
Dissatisfaction
3. Loyalty. The loyalty response means
passively but optimistically waiting for
conditions to improve, including speaking up for the
organization in the face of external criticism and
trusting the organization and its management to
“do the right thing.”
4. Neglect. The neglect response passively

allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic

absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and
increased error rate.

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Resulted Behaviors
 Counterproductive work behavior
 Counterproductive work behavior: actions

that actively damage the organization,

including stealing, behaving aggressively toward
coworkers, or being late or absent.
 Absenteeism: negative relationship between

satisfaction and absenteeism. The more satisfy

you are, the less likely you are to miss work.
 Turnover: a pattern of lowered job satisfaction is

the best predictor of intent to leave.

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Implications for Managers
 Of the major job attitudes – job
satisfaction, job involvement,
organizational commitment,
perceived organizational support
(POS), and employee engagement –
remember that an employee’s job
satisfaction level is the best
single predictor of behavior.

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Implications for Managers
 Pay attention to your employees’ job
satisfaction levels as determinants
of their performance, turnover,
absenteeism, and withdrawal
behaviors.
 Consider the fact that high pay
alone is unlikely to create a
satisfying work environment.

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Implications for Managers
 Measure employee job attitudes
objectively and at regular intervals in
order to determine how employees are
reacting to their work.
 To raise employee satisfaction, evaluate the

fit between the employee’s work interests

and the intrinsic parts of his/her job to
create work that is challenging and
interesting to the individual.
 End

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