INDIVIDUAL

ATTITIDES AND JOB

SATISFACTION
Chapter 03
ATTITUDE
 Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments—either favorable
or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events.
 Simply it reflects how we feel about something:
 Expressing attitude “I like my job”
 It means I am expressing my attitude about work.

 It describes an individual’s feelings, thoughts and act toward some

object in the environment.
 i.e Smoking is unhealthy, Sara feels disgusted when people smoke
around her, and avoids being in situations where people smoke.
The components of an Attitude
 If someone has treated you unfairly:
 You quickly think and feel something
 Or you feel and thinking to respond
 Cognitive Component: The opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
 Affective Component: The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.
 Behavioral Component: An intention to behave in a certain way toward
someone or something.
 For Example:
 Cognition: Employee may thought he deserves promotion.
 Affect / Feeling: Employee may dislike his/her supervisor.
 Behavior: Person may show withdrawal behavior, look for another job.
For Example: An employee didn’t get promotion that s/he deserves:
ATTITUDE & BEHAVIOR
 Some research argued that the attitudes people hold determine
what they do or predict future behavior.
 But some researchers have argued that attitudes follow
behavior.
 Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two or
more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.
 What person thinks and what he/she actually does, sometimes differs!
 For Example: “I smoke cigarettes” and “Cigarettes can kill smokers”.
 ATTITUDE & BEHAVIOR
 People seek consistency among their attitudes, and between their attitudes and their behavior.
 Any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable, and individuals will therefore attempt to reduce it by:
 Altering the attitudes
 Altering the behavior
 Developing a rationalization for the discrepancy
 Social Sharing of their attitudes

 The desire to reduce the dissonance depends on:

 Importance of the element
 Influence over the element
 Reward attached with dissonance

 The most powerful moderators of the attitudes-behavior relationship are:

 Importance of the attitude
 Correspondence to behavior
 Accessibility,
 Social pressures
 Direct experience of the person with the attitude
JOB ATTITUDES
 Positive or negative evaluation that employees hold about different
aspects of work environment.

Job
Satisfaction

Employee Job
Engagement Involvement

Job
Attitude

Perceived
Organizationa
Organizationa
l Commitment
l Commitment
1. Job Satisfaction

An Important Attitude?
For Both Employee and Organization
 Job Satisfaction: A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics.
 Positive emotional state resulting from one’s job experience. [Job Satisfaction]
 Positive Feelings: Support colleagues, Accept challenging tasks, Complete work timely etc..

 Negative emotional state resulting from one’s job experience. [Job Dissatisfaction]
 Negative Feelings: Do not support colleagues, not doing assigned work or procrastinate etc..
2. Job Involvement

 The degree to which people identifies with a job, actively participate in it, and consider
performance important to self worth.
 How engaged a person is with doing their job and the level of enthusiasm they have
for doing it.
 For Example:
 In a restaurant, a waiter bringing your meal, it is cold, and they don’t really care.
High Job Involvement

 Employees with high job involvement strongly identify with and really and care about
the kind of work they do.
 Psychological Empowerment: [Degree to which they can influence]
 The degree to which they can influence their work environment, their competence, the
meaningfulness of the job, and their perceived autonomy.

 Good Leaders Empower their Employees:

 Involve in Decision Making
 Ask for their input

 High Level of Job Involvement and Empowerment

 Positively related to Organizational Citizenship and Job Performance.
 Reduce Absences and Lower Resignation Rates.
3. Organizational Commitment

 An employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals

and wishes to remain a member.

 Relationship:
 Organizational Commitment and Absenteeism and Turnover is Negative.

Types of Commitment:
1. Affective Commitment
2. Continuance Commitment
3. Normative Commitment
Types of Organizational Commitment

1. Affective Commitment: [Staying because you want to stay]

 Continue working for an organization because you agree with it and desire to
remain there.

2. Continuance Commitment: [Staying because you need to]

 Continue working for an organization because you cannot afford to leave.

3. Normative Commitment: [Staying because you ought to, moral responsibility]

 Continue working for an organization because you face pressure from other to
remain.
4. Perceived Organizational Support: [POS]

The degree to which employees believe the organization values their

contribution and cares about their well being.
 For Example:
 An employee believes his organization would accommodate him/her if there is child
care problem or any other i.e legal support, medical
 Or forgive any serious honest mistake.
 Employee see POS when:
 Rewards are deemed fair
 Employees have voice over decisions
 Supervisors are supportive

 Strong POS  High Level of Citizenship Behavior, Lower level of

Tardiness and better customer service.
5. Employee Engagement

 An individuals involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the

work s/he does.
 It happens when goal of organization is aligned with employee’s goal.
 They don’t work for paycheck, or just next promotion, but work on behalf of organization’s goal.
 Aligned goal can be for employees:
 Opportunities to learn new skills
 Access to new resources i.e. software, databases etc.

 Highly Engaged Employees: Passion for their work and feel deep connection to their
company.
 Disengaged Employees: They put time but not energy or attention to their work.
 Highly Engaged employee  High Level of Customer Satisfaction, More Productive

Lower Level Turnover, Workplace Accidents,

JOB SATISFACTION

Measuring Job Satisfaction:

 Job Satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job.
 Job requires:
 Interacting with co-workers and bosses
 Following organizational rules and policies
 Meeting performance standards
 Living with less than ideal working conditions, and the like.

Single Global Rating

Methods of (Single Question)
Measuring Job
Satisfaction Summation of Job
Facet
Summation of Job Facets Method

1. First Identify the Key Elements of Job:

 Nature of the Work [Technical, Non-Technical]
 Supervision
 Present Pay
 Promotion Opportunities
 Physical Environment
 Relationship with co-workers, boss and others.
2. Employees are asked about the feeling about each element.
3. At the end, sum the responses of all facets to determine the job
satisfaction. [Link]
How satisfied are people in their jobs?
WHAT CAUSES JOB SATISFACTION?
 Job Conditions:
 Interdependence
 Feedback
 Social Support
 Workplace conditions
 Culture
 Interaction with co-workers outside the workplace
 Supervisors and leaders

 Personality:
 also plays an important role for job satisfaction.
 A person who has positive Core Self-Evaluations (who believes in their inner worth and basic competence)
are more satisfied.
 Then those with negative core self evaluations who have negative view and less confidence.

 Pay:
 Level of pay in poor countries are the major contributor in Job satisfaction and overall happiness.
 Money does not motivate people but it is not necessary that it also can not make people happy.

 CSR:
 An organization’s self-regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond what is required by law.
OUTCOMES OF THE JOB SATISFACTION

 Job Performance
 Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
 Customer Satisfaction
 Life Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction and Job Performance

 Several studies suggest: Happy Workers are More Productive.

Job Satisfaction & Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

 Job satisfaction is the major determinant of an employee’s OCB.

 Satisfied employees would talk positively about organization
 Help others.
 Go beyond normal expectations in their job.
 In general they reciprocate the positive experiences.

 Job satisfaction is moderately correlated with OCB.

 Antagonistic (Aggressive/Unfriendly) co-worker are less likely to engage in OCB.
 But when people are in good mood, they likely to engage in OCB.
Job Satisfaction & Customer Satisfaction

 Satisfied employee increase the customer satisfaction, because:

 They are more friendly and responsive
 They focus on relationship marketing
 They understand the behaviors of customers due to experience (angry, hyper customers)
Job Satisfaction & Absenteeism

 A consistent negative relationship between job satisfaction and

absenteeism, but moderate to weak.
 Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable absences.

 Dissatisfied Employees are more likely to miss work:

 When they see numerous alternative jobs are available, they have high absence rates otherwise low
absences.

Mandatory
Leave
Job Satisfaction and Turnover

 The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is

stronger than between satisfaction and absenteeism.
 Satisfaction—Turnover relationship is also affected by
alternative job prospects (opportunity)
 If employees are provided with unsolicited job offer.
 Normally employees PULLED by other job opportunities.
 Rather than PUSH by current job.
Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance

 Deviant Behavior in workplace:

 If employees don’t like the work environment, they’ll respond somehow
 Not easy to predict, how exactly employees will react.
 Job dissatisfaction and hostile relationships with co workers predict
variety of behavior in organization:
 Unionization attempt
 Substance abuse
 Stealing at work
 Undue socialization (drugs, gambling etc.)
 Tardiness
 Receive higher education, certification and affiliations.
 Attend workshop, parallel education (E-MBA, Diplomas etc..)

 Many employees don’t try to reach root cause of problem but they quit.
The Impact of Satisfied and Dissatisfied Employees on the
Workplace

What happens when employees like their jobs and when they
dislike their jobs?

IMPACT OF DISSATISFACTION:
Constructive Behaviors:
1. Voice

2. Loyalty

Destructive Behaviors:
3. The Exit

4. Neglect
Responses to Dissatisfaction
1. Voice

 Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting

improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some forms of
union activity.
2. Loyalty
 Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve:
 Including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism
 Trusting organization and its management to “do the right things”.

 “Day will come when my organization value employees”

3. The Exit

 Leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning.
4. Neglect

 Passively allows condition to worsen and includes chronic

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