Attitude, Values and Job

Satisfaction
 Attitude
An attitude may be defined as the way a person feels about something — be it person, a
place, a commodity, a situation or an idea. It describes an individual’s feeling, thought and
predisposition to act towards something. Attitudes may be regarded as varying in several
ways as:

Direction-for or against something

Degree-the amount of favourableness/unfavourableness (to be neutral in attitude is to

be indifferent to the object)

Intensity-degree of confidence

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 Attitude
Attitudes are learned through experience; They predispose people to behave in certain specific ways; Attitude and behaviour
conform to a principle of consistency, i.e., behaviour is the direct outcome of attitude; The unfavourable or favourable manner
of behaving indicates the assessment component of attitude.

Thus, an attitude is formed from an integration of a person’s beliefs and values. Further, an attitude gives rise to an intention to
behave in a certain way, which thereby gives rise to the behaviour itself.

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 Values
Value represents basic conviction that a specific mode of conduct is personally or socially
preferable to an opposite mode of conduct. They contain a judgmental element.

They carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right, good or desirable. Values have both content
and intensity attributes. The content attribute emphasises that a mode of conduct or end-state
of existence is important. The intensity attribute specifies how important it is.

When we rank an individual value in terms of their intensity we obtain the value system of that
person. All of us have a hierarchy of values that forms our value system of that person. This
system is identified by the relative importance we assign to such values as freedom, self
respect, honesty, obedience, equality, and so on.

Values are so embedded that they can be inferred from people’s behaviour and their
perception, personality and motivation. They generally influence their behaviour. Values are
relatively stable and enduring. This is because of the way in which they are originally learnt.

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 Values
The values learnt can be divided into two broad categories—

1. Terminal values
2. Instrumental values.

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 Terminal Values and Instrumental Values

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 Characteristics of Attitude
Valence: An individual will have valence towards developing a favourable attitude regarding things he likes the most. He might
have a negative attitude towards certain other things. Victor Vroom in his valence theory of motivation has highlighted this point.

As per the theory,

Motivation = Valence * Expectancy * Instrumentality

Vroom says that an individual’s motivation is a product of several factors:

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 Characteristics of Attitude
Multiplexicity: According to this theory, total attitude is a sum-total of several sub-attitudes. For example, a worker with a positive
attitude could have in him multiple virtues such as loyalty, politeness as well as love for hard work. A holistic positive personality
emerges as a result.

Need-based attitude: A positive attitude is a result of fulfilling one’s safety, affiliation, esteem and self-actualization needs.

Centrality: Many workers are so much dedicated to their work that they are highly focused towards their job irrespective of
external motivational factors. Their attitude to work is unquestionable, and work is the worship for them.

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 Components of Attitude
The three basic components of an attitude are as follows:

Cognitive or informational components which consist of beliefs and

values, ideas, and other information a person has about the attitude
object. For instance, a person seeking a job may learn from the
newspapers and other people that a particular company is a good
pay-master.

Affective or emotional components involve the person’s feeling of likes

and dislike towards the attitude object.

A Behavioral component is the tendency of a person to behave in a

particular manner towards the attitude object.

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 Types of Attitude
In organizations, job-related attitudes can be classified into three types: job satisfaction, job involvement
and organizational commitment.

Job satisfaction: Job satisfaction is a general attitude which a worker has as a result of several
specific attitudes. Job factors, individual adjustment, and good group relations result in job
satisfaction and positive attitude towards the job.

Job involvement: Job involvement is the extent to which an individual actively participates in it,
and considers his performance important to self worth. An individual with a high level of job
involvement is highly satisfied, more productive and less likely to be frustrated.

Organizational commitment: Organizational commitment refers to an individual’s loyalty and

involvement with high commitment. An individual identifies with organizational goals and wishes to
maintain membership in the organization. Highly committed individual is a better performer, and is
less prone to resign from the job.

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 Functions of Attitude
The function of attitudes often helps employees to adapt with their work environment.

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 Attitude and Organizational Behavior
There are four important functions that attitudes perform in organizational settings. They are as
follows:

Attitudes ascribe meaning to environmental objects and situations.

Attitudes reconcile contradictions. With proper attitudes as a background intelligent

people can make the actions which to another individual are obvious. Thus, when a
worker takes an extraordinarily long time for lunch, his supervisor may charge him with
loafing or just relaxing, depending on his attitude. Likewise, the worker may consider his
supervisor as spying for evaluating him on the job depending on his overall attitude
towards the management.

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 Attitude and Organizational Behavior
There are four important functions that attitudes perform in organizational settings. They are as
follows (contd.):

Attitudes organize facts. Clarity of perception, interpretation of facts and derivation of

meanings for the words thoughts and feelings basically depend on the way they are
organized. Thus perception is strongly influenced by attitudes. Different people with
divergent attitudes tend to perceive the objective differently.

Attitudes also facilitate the selection of facts. Through the selection of facts from a mass of
objective information, an individual tends to select such facts as are favourable and
consistent with his attitude, and ignoring those opposed to an attitude is like a filter screen.

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 Sources of Attitude Formation
In an organization, attitudes are formed through three main sources — early socialization, group
affiliation and personal experience.

Early socialization- Any of the attitudes can be traced back to the individual’s childhood and
specifically to the messages, injunctions and admonitions by parents, teachers and other
authority figures. Usually attitudes towards work, authority and behaviour is observed in
childhood, for instance, attitude towards police can be positive or negative.

Group affiliation- Second major source of attitude formation is the group of friends or
colleagues with whom an individual associates and adopts the attitude appropriate to or
commonly held norm by the group.

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 Sources of Attitude Formation
In an organization, attitudes are formed through three main sources — early socialization, group
affiliation and personal experience (contd.).

Personal experience- The third source of attitude formation is an individual’s own

experience and events which occur and which mould his view of the world. Mass
communication media like radio, newspaper, TV, etc., supply large quantities of information,
and thus, cater to the attitude of the individuals. Thus, most of the attitude formation can be
traced to early socialization and personal experience of the world. Attitudes develop in the
process of need satisfaction. An individual develops favourable attitudes towards objects
and persons that block the achievement of his goal. Attitudes are formed through
experiences which means that they are learnt.

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 Theories of Attitude Formation and Change
There are various theories which explain attitude formation and change. These theories are based on
basic insights into the psychological processes. The various theories are:

Cognitive consistency theories: These are concerned with the inconsistencies that arise between
related beliefs. Bit of knowledge and evaluation about an object or an issue though incomplete
information creates inconsistency and confusion. All of them have, in common, the idea that the
psychological tension created by this unpleasant state leads to attempts at reducing the
inconsistency. Heider and Newcomb developed balanced theories. A balanced state for Heider is a
state in which everything fits together harmoniously without stress. Lack of balance results in stress
and pressure. To relieve the stress Newcomb stresses on balance as it applies to communication
among people. His theory helps in understanding the role of persuasion in changing attitudes.

Congruity theory: Congruity theory is proposed by Osgood and Tannenbaum. This theory is similar
to the balance theory. Congruity is a stable and incongruity is an unstable state. The focus of this
theory is on changes in the evaluation of a source and a concept that are linked by an associative or
dissociative assertion.

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 Theories of Attitude Formation and Change
There are various theories which explain attitude formation and change. These theories are based on
basic insights into the psychological processes. The various theories are (contd.):

Affective-Cognitive consistency theory- This theory is concerned with the consistency between an
individual's overall attitude or affect towards an object or issue and his beliefs about its relationship
to his most general values. It proposes that changes in the affective component produce changes in
the cognitive component,and are ordered to bring about consistency between the two. The
difference between the two is that dissonance theory which considers the third component also. This
theory is based on the assumption that inconsistent cognitions reduce this unpleasant state of affairs
by changing attitudes.

Functional theories: Katz proposed functional theory and suggested functional, ego-defensive,
value expressive and knowledge when owing to an attitude adjustive function. Either the individuals’
level of aspiration is raised or the activities and related attitude no longer can provide the satisfaction
they once did. So when new behaviours inconsistent with attitude bring satisfaction then the attitude
must be adjusted.

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 Theories of Attitude Formation and Change
There are various theories which explain attitude formation and change. These theories are based on
basic insights into the psychological processes. The various theories are (contd.):

Kelman’s functional theory: It is directed towards the types of social relationships that occur in
social influence situations. He distinguished the process of attitude formation and change
compliance identification and internalisation, which derive functional meaning from their emphasis
on the motivational significance of the individual relationship to the influencing agent.

Reinforcement theory: It emphasizes that the attitude changes because the individual is reinforced
for changing the attitude. Changed results from learning are produced by reinforcement.

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 Job Satisfaction
Job or work satisfaction depends to a large extent on the employee attitude.

As we know, an attitude is a set of actions with an emotional overtone. Attitudes are learned
and some are changed frequently. A change of attitude cannot be forced upon a person,
but it must come from within.

In short, job satisfaction is a general attitude which is the result of many specific attitudes in
three areas such as job factors, individual or personal characteristics and other social and
group relationships outside the job.

Studies have been conducted on all these factors and have proved the effect of each one
of them on the ultimate job satisfaction.

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 Factor Affecting Job Satisfaction

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 Factor Affecting Job Satisfaction

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 Case I
This is a case to improve your understanding of the relationship between Job Satisfaction and Motivation. Result of empirical Job
Satisfaction Survey- This survey indicates the following ranking of Job Satisfaction factors identified by behavioural Scientists.

Examine the above factors in the light of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs i.e.

1. Physiological 2. Safety and Security, 3. Affiliation, 4. Self-esteem 5. Actualization

Link each of the above 16 job satisfaction factors with the corresponding Maslow Factors.

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 Case II
Raman and Ravi both graduated from IIM Bangalore in the year of 2012. While Raman was placed at Tata Steel as a management trainee
post-MBA, Ravi decided to start his venture. Their career movement can be found below:

Ravi

Created an intra-city logistics startup in the year 2012, catering mainly to B2B customers

Raised seed funding in 2013 and scaled the start-up to profitability, finally selling it off to a larger player in 2014

Took a sabbatical of one year and travelled across 32 countries. Also, learnt surfing and scuba diving during this period

Returned to the industry in 2015 and joined an early stage Edtech startup as a Product Manager

Was a key member in the Edtech startup’s journey to become a Unicorn in 2020. Ravi has singlehandedly led many crucial product
initiatives during the period, and understood the industry really well.

Ravi is now an AVP for Product Management with the same organization

He is thinking to quit his job and choose playing poker as his full time career, as he is fairly good in the game

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 Case II
Raman and Ravi both graduated from IIM Bangalore in the year of 2012. While Raman was placed at Tata Steel as a management trainee
post-MBA, Ravi decided to start his venture. Their career movement can be found below:

Raman

Within 2 years of joining Tata Steel, Raman was able to deliver exceptional results in all the sales stints, winning multiple awards and
accolades

Raman starts his day early at 9 AM and believes in completing all the stipulated task by 6-7 PM, so that he has time to spend with his
mother, after work. However, he is really dedicated during the stipulated work hours, and he believes in building exceptional
processes to achieve long term sustainability

Raman because of his exceptional performance, was offered a position in the UK, to help Tata Steel with a major acquisition.
However, Raman declined the offer because he wants to stay in Jamshedpur (his current location) and be close to his family.

Raman has been with Tata Steel for the last 10 years, and is currently working there as a Principal Manager. He aspires to retire from
same organization

Compare and Contrast the Attitudes of Raman and Ravi

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 Assignment
In your opinion, what are the three most important factors that would make you dissatisfied
with your job? What are the three most important factors relating to organizational
commitment when it comes to you?

How important is pay in making you attached to a company? Rank the keys elements that
are most important for you to be satisfied with your job.

Do you think younger and older people are similar in what makes them happier at work
and committed to their companies? Conduct an interview with your parent/ older relative
and compare their perspective with that of yours on this aspect.

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 In the next class, we will study

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