Chapter 2

Attitudes and Job

Satisfaction

05/04/2023 1
 Learning Outcomes

1. What is attitudes?
2. What are the main components of attitudes?
3. What are the major job attitudes?
4. What are the relationships among job satisfaction, job
performance, OCB (organizational citizenship behavior),
customer satisfaction, absenteeism and turnover?

Organizational Behavior – Attitude and Job Satisfaction 2

 Attitudes

• Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects,

people, or events.
• Attitudes reflect how one feels about something

Organizational Behavior – Attitude and Job Satisfaction 3

 Attitudes

• What are the main components of attitudes?

o Three main components of attitudes:
Cognition – an opinion or belief
“I just found out I am paid 20% less than my coworkers.”
Affect – the emotional or feeling segment associated with that
belief
“I feel angry that I am not being treated fairly.”
Behavior – the intention to behave in a certain way
“I am going to quit this job soon as I can, and I am taking
the red stapler with me!”

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 Attitudes

• Three main components of attitudes:

Cognitive component
The opinion or belief segment of
an attitude
Attitudes
Affective component
Evaluative statements or
The emotional or feeling segment judgments concerning
of an attitude objectives, people, or events

Behavioral component
an intention to behave in a certain
way toward someone or something

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 Attitudes

Cognitive component
what an employee believes to be
true about his or her job or
organization
Work attitudes
Affective component collections of feelings,
How an employee feels about his beliefs, and thoughts about
or her job or organization how to behave in one’s job
and organization
Behavioral component
what an employee thinks about
how to behave in his or her job or
organization

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 Attitudes

• What are the major job attitudes?

o Job satisfaction
o Job involvement
o Organizational commitment
o Perceived organizational support (POS)
o Employee engagement

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 Job Satisfaction

• Job satisfaction (the collection of feelings and beliefs that

people have about their current jobs) is one of the most
important and well-researched work attitudes in
organizational behavior.

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 Job Satisfaction

• Why do managers and researchers think it’s important?

o Job satisfaction has the potential to affect a wide range of
behaviors in organizations and contribute to employees’
levels of well-being.

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 What causes Job Satisfaction ?

Personality
the enduring ways a person
has of feeling, thinking,
and behaving

Work situation Job satisfaction the Values

the work itself (co-
workers, supervisors)
physical working
conditions, working
hours, pay
collection of feelings, intrinsic work values,
beliefs, and thoughts about extrinsic work values
how to behave with respect and ethical values
to one’s current job

Social influence
co-workers, groups, culture

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 What causes Job Satisfaction?

• The Work Itself – the strongest correlation with overall

satisfaction
• Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level of
comfortable living

o Advancement
o Supervision
o Coworkers

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 Measuring Job Satisfaction

• Single Global Rating Method

o Only a few general questions
o Remarkably accurate
• Summation Score Method
o Identifies key elements in the job and asks for specific feeling
about them

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 Organizational Commitment

• Affective commitment: exists when employee are happy to

be members of an organization, believe in and feel good
about the organization and what it stands for, are attached to
the organization, and intend to do what is food for the
organization.
• Continuance commitment: exists when employees are
committed not so much because they want to be but because
they have to be – when the costs of leaving the organization
are too great.
• Normative commitment: an obligation to remain with an
organization for moral or ethical reasons.

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 Job involvement

• The degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively

participates in it, and considers performance important to
self-worth.

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 Perceived Organizational support

• The degree to which employees believe an organization

values their contribution and cares about their well-being.

Organizational Behavior – Attitude and Job Satisfaction 15

 Employee engagement

• An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and

enthusiasm for the work he or she does.

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• What are the relationships among job satisfaction, job
performance, OCB (organizational citizenship behavior),
customer satisfaction, absenteeism, turnover and employee
well-being?
o Absenteeism
o Turnover: is the permanent withdrawal of an employee from
the employing organization
o Organizational citizenship behavior: behavior that is not
required but is necessary for organizational survival and
effectiveness
o Employee well-being: how happy, health, and prosperous
employees are

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 • Job satisfaction • Job performance
• Job involvement • OCB
• Organizational • Customer satisfaction
commitment • Absenteeism
• Perceived • Turnover
organizational support • Employee well-being
(POS)
• Employee engagement

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 The Benefits of Satisfaction

• Better job and organizational performance

• Better organizational citizenship behaviors
(OCB – Discretionary behaviors that contribute to
organizational effectiveness, but are not part of employees’
formal job description)
• Greater levels of customer satisfaction
• Generally lower absenteeism and turnover

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• Why do managers and researchers think it’s important?
o A positive relationship appears to exist between
organizational commitment and job productivity.

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 Discussion Questions

• Case study 1: Long hours, hundreds of e-mails, and no

sleep: Does this sound like a satisfying job? (page 90, 91,
reference book: Stephen P. Robbins, and Timothy A. Judge,
Organizational Behavior, 15th ed., Pearson Education, 2013,
ISNB-13: 978-0-13-283487-2).
• Case study 2: Crafting a better job (page 91, 92, reference
book: Stephen P. Robbins, and Timothy A. Judge,
Organizational Behavior, 15th ed., Pearson Education, 2013,
ISNB-13: 978-0-13-283487-2).

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