Understand about the attitudes
Contrast the three components of an attitude.
Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
Define job satisfaction
Importance of employee behavior in an organization
1. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
Prepared By: Ms.Faizal Antanat Shamila
2. After studying of this chapter, you
should be able to:
• Understand about the attitudes
• Contrast the three components of an attitude.
• Summarize the relationship between attitudes
and behavior.
• Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
• Define job satisfaction
• Importance of employee behavior in an
organization
3. Attitudes
Attitudes reflect how one feels about something.
Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments concerning
objects, people, or events.
Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes
are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly
influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are
unconscious but still have an effect on our beliefs and
behaviors.
Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or
unfavorable—about objects, people, or events. They reflect
how we feel about something. When you say “I like my
job,” you are expressing your attitude about work.
4. There are a number of factors that can
influence how and why attitudes form. Such
as;
Experience
Social Factors
Learning
5. Components of Attitudes or ABC
Model
Cognitive Component
This involves a person’s belief/knowledge about an attitude object.
“My pay is low”
Affective component
This involves a person’s feeling/emotions about the attitude object
“I am angry over how little I’m paid.”
Behavioral component
The behavioral component of an attitude describes an intention to
behave in a certain way toward someone or something.
“I’m going to look for another job that pays better.”
6. Viewing attitudes as having three components—cognition, affect, and
behavior—is helpful in understanding the complexity and potential
relationship between attitudes and behavior. Keep in mind that these
components are closely related, and cognition and affect in particular
are inseparable in many ways.
The employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognition), he
strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect), and he has complained and
taken action (behavior). Although we often think cognition causes
affect, which then causes behavior, in reality these components are
difficult to separate. In organizations, attitudes are important for 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 formed, how
they relate to actual job behavior, and how they might be changed.
7. Principle of Consistency
One of underlying assumption about the link between
attitudes and behavior is that of consistency. This means
that we often or usually expect the behavior of a person to
be consistent with the attitudes that they hold. This is
called the principle of consistency. The principle of
consistency reflects the idea that people are rational and
attempt to behave rationally at all times and that a
person’s behavior should be consistent with their
attitudes.
Whilst this principle may be a sound one, it is clear that
people do not always follow it, sometimes behaving in
seemingly quite illogical ways, for example smoking
cigarettes and knowing that smoking causes lung cancer
and heart disease. So, there is evidence that the cognitive
and affective components of behavior don’t always match
with behavior.
8. Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation
involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or
behaviors. This produces a feeling of
discomfort leading to an alteration in one of
the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the
discomfort and restore balance etc.
For example, when people smoke (behavior)
and they know that smoking causes cancer
(cognition).
9. How Attitude Change Takes Place
According to cognitive dissonance theory, there
is a tendency for individuals to seek
consistency among their cognitions (i.e.,
beliefs, opinions). When there is an
inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors
(dissonance), something must change to
eliminate the dissonance. Dissonance can be
reduced in one of three ways:
10. • First, individuals can change one or more of the attitudes,
behavior, beliefs etc. so as to make the relationship between the
two elements a consonant one. When one of the dissonant
elements is a behavior, the individual can change or eliminate the
behavior. However, this mode of dissonance reduction frequently
presents problems for people, as it is often difficult for people to
change well-learned behavioral responses (e.g. giving up
smoking).
• A second (cognitive) method of reducing dissonance is
to acquire new information that outweighs the dissonant beliefs.
For example, thinking smoking causes lung cancer will cause
dissonance if a person smokes. However, new information such
as “research has not proved definitely that smoking causes lung
cancer” may reduce the dissonance
11. A third way to reduce dissonance is to reduce the importance of the
cognitions (i.e. beliefs, attitudes). A person could convince them self
that it is better to "live for today" than to "save for tomorrow." In other
words, he could tell himself that a short life filled with smoking and
sensual pleasures is better than a long life devoid of such joys. In this
way, he would be decreasing the importance of the dissonant cognition
(smoking is bad for ones health).
Notice that dissonance theory does not state that these modes of
dissonance reduction will actually work, only that individuals who are
in a state of cognitive dissonance will take steps to reduce the extent of
their dissonance. One of the points that dissonance theorists are fond of
making is that people will go to all sorts of lengths to reduce
dissonance.
The theory of cognitive dissonance has been widely researched in a
number of situations to develop the basic idea in more detail, and
various factors that have been identified which may be important in
attitude change.
12. Major Job Attitudes
Job Involvement
Job involvement measures the degree to which people identify psychologically with their
jobs and consider their perceived performance levels 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.
Psychological Empowerment
Psychological empowerment, employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence
their work environments, their competencies, the meaningfulness of their jobs, and their
perceived autonomy.
Organizational Commitment
An employee with organizational commitment identifies with a particular organization
and its goals and wishes to remain a member. Most research has focused on emotional
attachment to an organization and belief in its values as the “gold standard” for
employee commitment. Theoretical models propose that 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.
13. Perceived Organizational Support
Perceived organizational support (POS) is the degree to which employees
believe the organization values their contributions and cares about their
well-being. Research shows that 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.
Employees with strong POS perception have been found more likely to
have higher levels of citizenship behaviors, lower levels of tardiness, and
better customer service.
Employee Engagement
A relatively new concept is employee engagement, an individual’s
involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work she
does. To evaluate engagement, we might ask employees whether they
have access to resources and the opportunities to learn new skills,
whether they feel their work is important and meaningful, and whether
their interactions with coworkers and supervisors are rewarding. 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.
14. Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction When people speak of employee attitudes; they usually
mean job satisfaction, which describes a positive feeling about a job,
resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. A person with a high
level of job satisfaction holds positive feelings about his job, while a person
with a low level holds negative feelings.
Job Satisfaction is a positive feeling about a job resulting from an
evaluation of its characteristics. Job satisfaction refers to how well a job
provides fulfillment of a need or want, or how well it serves as a source or
means of enjoyment.
Job satisfaction is the degree to which individuals feel positively or
negatively about their jobs.
If an employee is not satisfied with the job there are chances for
absenteeism, low turnover, lower productivity. committing of mistakes,
diverting energy for different types of conflicts keeping this thing in view
all organizations are trying to identify the areas where satisfaction to be
improved to get out of the above dangers. Job Satisfaction is considered as
a key issue by the entrepreneur where efforts are taken and programs are
initiated. So every organization is giving higher priority to keep their
employees with satisfaction by providing several facilities which improves
satisfaction and which reduces dissatisfaction.
15. The Impact of Job Satisfaction on Employee
Performance
Satisfaction and Productivity
Satisfied workers are more productive and more
productive workers are more satisfied!
Worker productivity is higher in organizations with
more satisfied workers.
Satisfaction and Absenteeism
Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable
absences.
Satisfaction and Turnover
Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
Organizations take actions to retain high performers
and to weed out lower performers.
16. Satisfaction and OCB
Satisfied employees who feel fairly treated by and are
trusting of the organization are more willing to engage in
behaviors that go beyond the normal expectations of their
job.
Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
Satisfied workers provide better customer service.
Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction because:
They are more friendly, upbeat, and responsive.
They are less likely to turnover, which helps build long-
term customer relationships.
They are experienced.
Note: Dissatisfied customers increase employee job
dissatisfaction.
17. How Can Employee Express
Dissatisfaction?
• Exit – Behavior directed towards leaving the
organization
• Neglect – Allowing conditions to worsen
• Voice – Active and constructive attempts to
improve conditions
• Loyalty – Passively waiting for conditions to
improve
18. Importance of Employee Behaviour in an
Organization
Employees play a significant role in the dynamics
of a small business work environment. If you’re a
productive employee with a good attitude who
exhibits professional behavior, you can help the
business to succeed and further your career. If you
have a poor disposition, are unconcerned about
the success of your employer, and you outwardly
display hostility toward management, colleagues
and consumers, you can hurt the company and
jeopardize your career.
