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Bob Stretch Southwestern College

Robbins & Judge

Organizational Behavior

13th Edition

Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Chapter Learning Objectives

 After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

• Contrast the three components of an attitude.
• Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
• Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
• Define job satisfaction and show how it can be measured.
• Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.
• Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction.
• Show whether job satisfaction is a relevant concept in countries other than the United States.

Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes?

 Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is sometimes true!

 Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two

or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes

• Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or dissonance , to reach stability and consistency
• Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes, modifying the behaviors, or through rationalization
• Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:
  • Importance of elements
  • Degree of individual influence
  • Rewards involved in dissonance

Moderating Variables

 The most powerful moderators of the attitude-

behavior relationship are:

• Importance of the attitude
• Correspondence to behavior
• Accessibility
• Existence of social pressures
• Personal and direct experience of the attitude.

A ttitudes Predict B ehavior

Moderating Variables

What are the Major Job Attitudes?

 Job Satisfaction

• A positive feeling about the job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics

 Job Involvement

• Degree of psychological identification with the job where perceived performance is important to self-worth

 Psychological Empowerment

• Belief in the degree of influence over the job, competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy

Another Major Job Attitude

 Organizational Commitment

• Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, while wishing to maintain membership in the organization.
• Three dimensions:
  • Affective – emotional attachment to organization
  • Continuance Commitment – economic value of staying
  • Normative - moral or ethical obligations
• Has some relation to performance, especially for new employees.
• Less important now than in past – now perhaps more of occupational commitment , loyalty to profession rather than a given employer.

Are These Job Attitudes Really Distinct?

 No: these attitudes are

highly related.

 Variables may be

redundant (measuring

the same thing under a

different name)

 While there is some

distinction, there is also

a lot of overlap.

Be patient, OB researchers are working on it!

Job Satisfaction

 One of the primary job attitudes measured.

• Broad term involving a complex individual summation of a number of discrete job elements.

 How to measure?

• Single global rating (one question/one answer) - Best
• Summation score (many questions/one average) - OK

 Are people satisfied in their jobs?

• In the U. S., yes, but the level appears to be dropping.
• Results depend on how job satisfaction is measured.
• Pay and promotion are the most problematic elements.

See E X H I B I T 3– 2

Employee Responses to Dissatisfaction

Exit

• Behavior directed toward leaving the organization

Voice

• Active and constructive attempts to improve conditions

Neglect

• Allowing conditions to worsen

Loyalty

• Passively waiting for conditions to improve

See E X H I B I T 3– 4

Active

Passive

Destructive Constructive

Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

 Job Performance

• Satisfied workers are more productive AND more productive workers are more satisfied!
• The causality may run both ways.

 Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

• Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions of fairness.

 Customer Satisfaction

• Satisfied frontline employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

 Absenteeism

• Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss work.

Global Implications

 Is Job Satisfaction a U. S. Concept?

• No, but most of the research so far has been in the U. S.

 Are Employees in Western Cultures More Satisfied With

Their Jobs?

• Western workers appear to be more satisfied than those in Eastern cultures.
• Perhaps because Westerners emphasize positive emotions and individual happiness more than do those in Eastern cultures.

See E X H I B I T 3– 5

Summary and Managerial Implications

 Managers should watch employee attitudes:

• They give warnings of potential problems
• They influence behavior

 Managers should try to increase job satisfaction and

generate positive job attitudes

• Reduces costs by lowering turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, theft, and increasing OCB

 Focus on the intrinsic parts of the job : make work

challenging and interesting

• Pay is not enough