Attitudes

• Attitudes: evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people or events.

  • 3 main components of attitudes

    • Cognitive component: opinion or belief segment of an attitude.

      • e.g., “My pay is low”.

    • Affective component: emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.

      • e.g., “I’m angry over how little I’m paid”.

    • Behavioral component: intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

      • e.g., “I’m going to look for another job that pays better”.

• Cognitive dissonance: any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.

  • e.g., A friend constantly says that French cars are worse than German cars. His father gives him a Renault. He starts saying that the cars are not actually as bad.

• Moderators of the attitudes-behavior relationship

  • Importance of the attitude

  • Correspondence to behavior

  • Accessibility

  • Social pressures

  • Direct experience with the attitude

• Main job attitudes

  • Job satisfaction: positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

  • Job involvement: degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it and considers performance important to self worth.

    • Psychological empowerment: employees’ belief in the degree to which they affect their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job and their perceived autonomy in their work.

  • Organizational commitment: degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.

    • Affective commitment: emotional attachment to an organization and a belief in its values.

    • Continuance commitment: perceived economic value of remaining with an organization compared to leaving it.

    • Normative commitment: obligation to remain with an organization for moral or ethical reasons.

  • Perceived organizational support (POS): degree to which employees believe an organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being.

  • Employee engagement: employee’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work he/she does.

    • Benefits of employee engagement

      • Higher customer satisfaction

      • More productive

      • Higher profits

      • Lower turnover

      • Fewer accidents

Job satisfaction

• Measuring job satisfaction

  • Single global rating: “How satisfied are you with your job?” (number between 1-5).

  • Summation score: key elements in a job and asks about employees feelings about each.

    → Both methods are equally valid and both have their pros and cons.

• How satisfied are people in their jobs?

  • Across Europe and most developed countries people are usually satisfied with their jobs.

  • Satisfaction levels vary a lot depending on which facet of job satisfaction.

• Causes of job satisfaction

  • Job conditions

  • Pay

  • Personality

    • Core self-evaluations: bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence and worth as a person.

• The impact of satisfied and dissatisfied employees on the workplace

  • Employee responses to dissatisfaction

    • Exit: dissatisfaction expressed through behavior directed towards leaving the organization.

    • Voice: dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to improve conditions.

    • Loyalty: dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to improve.

    • Neglect: dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen.

  • Outcomes of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction

    • Job satisfaction and job performance → pretty strong correlation, organizations with more satisfied workers are more effective

    • Job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) → moderately correlated

      • People who are satisfied are more likely to engage

      • Workers with certain personality traits are also more likely

      • When people are in a good mood → more likely to take part

    • Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction

      • Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

      • Upbeat and friendly employees = happy customers

    • Job satisfaction and absenteeism → moderate to weak

      • Dissatisfied workers are likely to miss work

      • Workers can be satisfied but still want to have some vacation

    • Job satisfaction and turnover → stronger than absenteeism

      • Workers can be offered something better, not necessarily dissatisfied

    • Job satisfaction and workplace deviance

      • Workers who are dissatisfied are likely to act in some way or another

      • They will find a way to “get even” (stealing, slacking, etc.)

Global implications

• Job satisfaction is a concept that exists everywhere, across all cultures. However, there are still cultural differences in job satisfaction.

  • Western cultures tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction than in Eastern cultures.

    • Reasons: maybe they emphasize positive emotions and individual happiness.