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Human Behavior in Organization (HBO)
MODULE No. 3
On Attitudes and Satisfaction
Attitudes
Attitudes are evaluative statements or
judgments – either favorable or unfavorable –
concerning objects, people, or events. They
reflect how one feels about something. When I
say “I like my job,” I am expressing my attitude
about work.
Attitudes are complex. If you ask people about
their attitude toward religion, the organization
they work for, you may get a simple response,
but the reasons underlying the response are
probably complex.
In order to fully understand attitudes, we need to
consider their fundamental properties. In the
material that follows, we’ll answer six questions
about attitudes that will help you understand
them better.
1. What are the main components of
attitudes?
2. How consistent are attitudes?
3. Does behavior always follows from
attitudes?
4. What are the major job attitudes?
5. How are employee attitudes measured?
6. What is the importance of attitudes to
workplace diversity?
What are the main components of
attitudes?
Attitudes have three components : cognitive,
affect and behavior.
1.) Cognitive component of an attitude.
The opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
The belief that “discrimination is wrong” is an
evaluative statement. Such an opinion is the
cognitive component of an attitude.
2.) Affective component of an attitude.
The emotional or feeling segment of a attitude.
Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an
attitude and is reflected in the statement “I don’t
like Jon because he discriminates against
minorities.” Affect can lead to behavioral
outcomes.
3.) Behavioral component of an attitude.
An intention to behavior in a certain way toward
someone or something. The behavioral
component of an attitude refers to an intention to
behave in a certain way toward someone or
something.
So, to continue our example, I might choose
to avoid Jon because of my feelings about
him.
Viewing attitudes as made up of three
components –cognition, affect and behavior – is
helpful in understanding their complexity and the
potential relationship between attitudes and
behavior. Keep in mind the these components
are closely related.
In organization, attitudes are important
because of their behavioral component. If
workers believe, for example, that
supervisors, auditors, bosses, and time-and-
motion engineers are all in conspiracy to
make employees work harder for the same or
less money, it makes sense to try to
understand how these attitudes were formed,
their relationship to actual job behavior, and
how they might be changed.
How consistent are attitudes?
Did you ever notice how people change what
they say so it doesn’t contradict what they do?
Perhaps a friend of yours has consistently
argued that the quality of American cars isn’t
up to that of the import brands and that he’d
never own anything but a Japanese or
German car. But his dad gives him a late-
model Ford Mustang, and suddenly
American cars aren’t so bad.
When there is an 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. Any incompatibility
between two or more attitudes or between
behavior and attitudes.
In the late 1950s, Leon Festinger proposed the
theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory
sought to explain the linkage between attitudes
and behavior.
You know that cheating on your income tax
is wrong, but you “fudge” the numbers a bit
every year and hope you’re not audited. Or
you tell your children to floss their teeth
every day, but you don’t. So how do people
cope?
Dissonance means an inconsistency. Cognitive
dissonance refers to any incompatibility that an
individual might perceive between two or more
attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.
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Does behavior always follow from
attitudes?
Early research on attitudes assumed that they
were causally related to behavior ; that is, the
attitudes that people hold determine what they
do. Common sense, too, suggests a
relationship. Isn’t it logical that people watch
television programs that they say they like or
that employees try to avoid assignments they
find distasteful?
Based on an evaluation of a number of
studies that investigated the attitudes –
behavior relationship, the reviewer
concluded that attitudes were unrelated to
behavior or, at best, only slightly related.
Moderating variables. The most powerful
moderators of the attitudes –behavior
relationship have been found to be the
importance of the attitude, its specificity, its
accessibility, whether there exist social
pressures, and whether a person has direct
experience with the attitude.
Important attitudes are ones that reflect
fundamental values, self-interest, or
identification with individuals or groups that a
person values.
For instance, asking someone specifically
about her intention to stay with the
organization for the next 6 months is likely to
better predict turnover for that person than if
you asked her how satisfied she was with
her pay.
Self-Perception theory. Almost most attitudes
– behavior studies yield positive results,
researchers have achieved still higher
correlations by pursuing another direction –
looking at whether or not behavior influences
attitudes.
So if an employee was asked her feelings
about being a training specialist at Marriott,
she would likely think, “I’ve had this same
job with Marriott as a trainer for 10 years.
Nobody forced me to stay on this job. So I
must like it.”
Self-Perception theory, therefore, argues that
attitudes are used, after the fact, to make sense
out an action that has already occurred rather
that as devices that precede and guide action.
What are the major job attitudes ?
A person can have thousands of attitudes, but
OB focuses our attention on a very limited
number of work-related attitudes. These work-
related attitudes tap positive or negative
evaluations that employees hold about aspects
of their work environment.
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Most of the research in OB has been concerned
with three attitudes : job satisfaction, job
involvement, and organizational commitment.
Job satisfaction. The term job satisfaction can
be defined as a positive feeling about one’s job
resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics.
A person with a high level of job satisfaction
holds positive feelings about the job, while a
person who is dissatisfied holds negative
feelings about the job.
Job involvement. The degree to which a
person identifies with a job, actively participates
in it, and considers performance important to
self-worth.
Employees with a high level of job involvement
strongly identify with and really care about the
kind of work they do. A closely related concept
is psychological environment, which is
employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they
impact their work environment, their
competence, the meaningfulness of their job,
and the perceived autonomy in their work.
For example, one study of nursing managers
in Singapore found that good leaders
empower their employees by involving them
in decisions, making them feel that their
work is important, and giving them
discretion to “do their own thing.”
Psychological empowerment. 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 defined as a
state in which an employee identifies with a
particular organization and its goals and wishes
to maintain membership in the organization.
So, high job involvement means identifying
with one’s specific job, while high
organizational commitment means
identifying with one’s employing
organization.
There are three (3) separate dimensions to
organizational commitment:
1.) Affective commitment – an emotional
attachment to the organization and a belief in its
values.
For example, a Petco employee may be
affectively committed to the company
because of its involvement with animals.
2.) Continuance commitment – the
perceived economic value of remaining with an
organization compared to leaving it.
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An employee may be committed to an
employer because she is paid well and feels
it would hurt her family to quit.
3.) Normative commitment – an obligation
to remain with the organization for moral or
ethical reasons.
For example, an employee who is
spearheading a new initiative may remain
with an employer because he feels it would
“leave the employer in a lurch” if he left.
Other job attitudes.
Perceived organizational support is the
degree to which employees believe the
organization values their contribution and cares
about their well-being.
For example, an employee believes that his
organization would accommodate him if he
had a child-care problems or would forgive
an honest mistake on his part.
Employee engagement. An individual’s
involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the work they do.
For example, one might ask employees
about the availability of resources and the
opportunities to learn new skills, whether
they feel their work is important and
meaningful, and whether their interactions
with their coworkers and supervisors were
rewarding.
How are employees attitudes
measured?
Knowledge of employee attitudes can be helpful
to managers in attempting to predict employee
behavior. But how does management get
information about employee about employee
attitudes? The most popular method is through
the use of attitude surveys.
Attitude surveys. Eliciting responses from
employees through questionnaires on how they
feel about their jobs, work groups, supervisors,
and the organization.
The typical attitude survey presents the
employee with a set of statements or
questions wit a rating scale indicating the
degree of agreement.
Some examples might include : “This
organization’s wage rate are competitive with
those of other organizations” ; “My job
makes the best use of my abilities” ; and “ I
know what my boss expects of me.”
Ideally, the items should be tailored to obtain the
specific information that management desires.
An individual’s attitude score is achieved by
summing up responses to the questionnaire
items. These scores can be then be averaged
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for work groups, teams, departments, divisions,
or the organization as a whole.
What is the importance of attitudes to
workplace diversity?
Managers are increasingly concerned with
changing employee attitudes to reflect shifting
perspectives on racial, gender, and other
diversity issues.
A comment to a coworker of the opposite
sex that 20 years ago might have been taken
as a compliment –for instance, a make telling
a female colleague that he thinks her outfit is
sexy – can today become a career-limiting
episode. As such, organizations are
investing in training to help reshape the
attitudes of employees.
What do these diversity programs look like and
how do they address attitude change? They
almost all include a self-evaluation phase.
People are pressed to examine themselves and
to confront ethnic and cultural stereotypes they
might hold. Then participants typically take part
in group discussions or panels with
representatives from diverse groups.
So, for instance, a Hmong man might
describe his family’s life in Southeast Asia
and explain why they resettled in California ;
or a lesbian might describe how she
discovered her sexual identity and the
reaction of her friends and family when she
came out.
Job Satisfaction
How do we measure job satisfaction? How
satisfied are employees in their jobs? What
causes an employee to have a high level of job
satisfaction? How do dissatisfied and satisfied
employees affect an organization?
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.
This means that an employee’s assessment of
how satisfied or dissatisfied he or she is with the
job is a complex summation of a number of
discrete job elements. How, then, do we
measure the concept?
The two most widely used approaches are a
single global rating and a summation score
made up of a number of job facets.
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The single global rating method is nothing
more than asking individuals to respond to one
question, such as “All things considered, how
satisfied are you with your job?”
Respondents then reply by circling a number
between 1 and 5 that corresponds to
answers from “highly satisfied” to “highly
dissatisfied.”
The other approach – a summation of job
facets – is more sophisticated. 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. These factors are rated on a
standardized scale and then added up to create
an overall job satisfaction score.
How satisfied are people in their jobs?
Are most people satisfied with their jobs? The
answer seems to be a qualified “yes” in the
United States and in most developed countries.
Independent studies, conducted among U.S.
workers over the past 30 years, generally
indicate that the majority of workers are satisfied
with their jobs.
Research shows that satisfaction levels vary a
lot depending on which facet of job satisfaction
you’re talking about.
However, they tend to be less satisfied with their
pay and with promotion opportunities. It’s not
really clear why people dislike their pay and
promotion possibilities more than other aspects
of their jobs.
What causes job satisfaction ?
Think about the best job you ever had. What
made it so? Chances are you probably liked the
work you did. In fact, of 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.
Interesting jobs that provide training, variety,
independence, and control satisfy most
employees. In other words, most people prefer
work that is challenging and stimulating over
work that is predictable and routine.
The Impact of Dissatisfied and
Satisfied Employees on the
Workplace
There are consequences when employees like
their jobs, and there are consequences when
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employees dislike their jobs. One theoretical
framework – the exit-voice-loyalty-neglect
framework – is helpful in understanding the
consequences of dissatisfaction. The responses
are defined as follows :
Exit. Dissatisfaction expressed through behavior
directed toward leaving the organization.
Behavior directed toward leaving the
organization, including looking for a new position
as well as resigning.
Voice. Dissatisfaction expressed through active
and constructive attempts to improve conditions.
Actively and constructively attempting to
improve conditions, including suggesting
improvements, discussing problems with
superiors, and some forms of union activity.
Loyalty. Dissatisfaction expressed by passively
waiting for conditions to improve.
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.”
Neglect. Dissatisfaction expressed through
allowing conditions to worsen.
Passively allowing conditions to worsen,
including chronic absenteeism or lateness,
reduced effort, and increased error rate.
We now discuss more specific outcomes of
job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the
workplace.
Job Satisfaction and Job Performance. As
the “Myth or Science?” box concludes, happy
workers are more likely to be productive
workers, although its hard to tell which way the
causality runs.
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 and OCB. Satisfied
employees would seem more likely to talk
positively about the organization, help others,
and go beyond the normal expectations in their
job.
Moreover, satisfied employees might be more
prone to go beyond the call of duty because they
want to reciprocate their positive experiences.
Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction.
The evidence indicates that satisfied employees
increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Why? In service organization, customer
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retention and defection are highly dependent on
how frontline employees deal with customers.
Satisfied employees are more likely to be
friendly, upbeat, and responsive-which
customers appreciate.
Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism. We find a
consistent negative relationship between
satisfaction and absenteeism, but the correlation
is moderate to weak. While it certainly makes
sense that dissatisfied employees are more
likely to miss work, other factors have an impact
on the relationship and reduce the correlation
coefficient.
For example, organization that provide
liberal sick leave benefits are encouraging all
their employees - including those who are
highly satisfied – to take days off. Assuming
that you have a reasonable number of varied
interests, you can find work satisfying and
yet still take off work to enjoy a 3-day
weekend or tan yourself on a warn summer
day if those days come free with no
penalties.
Job Satisfaction and Turnover. Evidence
indicates that an important moderator of the
satisfaction –turnover relationship is the
employee’s level of performance. Specifically,
level of satisfaction is less important in
predicting turnover for superior performers.
Why? The organization typically makes
considerable efforts to keep these people. They
get pay raises, praise, recognition, increased
promotional opportunities, and so forth.
Few attempts are made by organization to retain
them. There may be subtle pressures to
encourage them to quit.
Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance.
Job satisfaction predicts a lot of specific
behaviors, including unionization attempts,
substance abuse, stealing at work, undue
socializing, and tardiness.
The key is that if employees don’t like their work
environment, they’ll respond somehow. It is not
always easy to forecast exactly how they’ll
respond. One worker’s response might be to
quit.
Readings :
(1)
Barry Niland, supervisor of a small sales
department, noticed that one of his industrial
sales representatives, Henry Hunter, appeared
to have low job satisfaction. Among other signs
of low satisfaction, his sales had declined in the
six months, although most other sales
representatives regularly were exceeding their
quotas. Niland decided to try to boost his sales
representative’s satisfaction by reminding him of
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the many opportunities for satisfaction in a sales
job.
Niland explained his actions as follows :
I pointed out that in his customer’s eyes he
alone is the company. He has the opportunity to
help his customer. He has the opportunity to
show his ability and knowledge to many types of
people. He has the opportunity through his own
efforts to help many types of people. He has the
opportunity to support the people who make our
products, to reward the stockholders, and to
control his financial return through his own
know-how. He has the opportunity of testing his
creative ideas, with immediate feedback about
their value. He has the opportunity to meet
constantly changing conditions, so there is no
boredom in his job. There is no quicker way to
achieve personal satisfaction than sales work.
(2)
Management decided it needed more
information about employee attitudes and called
a consultant, who developed – with
management’s assistance – a set of objectives
and written policies for the survey. These were
approved by an executive committee with the
company president in attendance. At this time
they selected the questionnaire method and
decided to survey all managers and workers.
Then the consultant, the personnel director, and
a personnel specialist planned the details. In
addition, the president appointed a committee of
seven middle managers to help draft questions
for the survey. The consultant guided the
committee and served as chairperson. The
committee also approved an official
announcement of the survey (six weeks before it
was given) and aided in informal publicity for the
event.
The consultant made the survey on three
consecutive days. Somewhat different
questionnaires were used for office, managerial,
and production employees. Each questionnaire
took about forty-five minutes to complete, so a
new group of employees was surveyed every
hour in a large conference room. The personnel
director introduced the consultant and left the
room, after which the consultant explained the
survey and administered it. Employees placed
responses in a locked ballot box.
After the survey was completed, the consultant
quickly prepared a full report for management
and a condensed report for employees. The
consultant also advised the executive committee
as it planned its program of action on the survey.