Work Related Attitudes

By
Dr.Sampath Kappagoda
Faculty of Management Studies
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka
Intended Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, You should be able

to

1. Identify the meaning of attitudes and work

related attitudes
2. Summarize the relationship between work
related attitudes and behaviour
3. State the relationship between job
satisfaction and behaviour
Learning objectives….

5. State the relationship between

organizational commitment and behaviour
7. Identify four employee responses to
dissatisfaction
8. Identify the OCB concept and its
implication
 Attitudes - Definition

•An attitude refers to our opinions, beliefs,

and feelings about aspects of our
environment
•Evaluative statement or judgments
concerning objects,people,or events

•An attitude is a relatively consistent,

learned, predisposition (tendency) to
behave in a certain way in response to a
given object
Attitudes
Relatively consistent

Attitudes are not permanent

They can be changed.
They tend to be reasonably well
established.
Therefore they are likely to lead to
somewhat predictable behaviour
Definition……
Learned
Attitudes are learned
They are formulated with experience or
/and knowledge

Predisposition
Attitudes represent willingness to behave
in a certain way
An attitude is not a perfectly accurate
prediction of behavior
Definition……
An object
•Attitudes related to some aspect of the
individual’s environment
•It may be anything, person, event,
place, concept etc

•An attitude is a relatively consistent,

learned, predisposition to behave in a
certain way in response to a given
object
Formation of Attitudes
beliefs that a person
holds desirable or
undesirable.

Values Attitudes Behaviou

r
Nimal is a good Can work with Nimal
as a friend
Honest person
Can recommend
Nimal to others as
good person

Nimal is not a Leave from Nimal

good person Can scold with
others
Types of work related attitudes

1. Job satisfaction

2. Organizational commitment
Components of Work Attitudes
Cognitive component
What a worker believe to be
true about his or her job or
organization
Work Attitudes
Affective component Collection of
How a worker feels about his feelings ,beliefs,and
or her job or organization thoughts about how to
behave in one’s job
and organization
Behavioral component
What a worker thinks about
how to behave in his or her
job or organization
 Job Satisfaction(JS)
The collection of feeling and belief that people
have about their current jobs.
-George and Jones ,1996-

A collection of attitudes that workers have

about their Jobs.
-Johns,1992-
An individual’s general attitudes, to his or her
job. A person with high JS holds positive
attitudes towards the job, and one who is
dissatisfied with it has negative attitudes
towards it.
-Robbins et al, 2003-
Theories of JS
•The hierarchy of human needs theory, the
foundation theory of JS was introduced
Abraham Maslow
•Fredeick Herzberg (1960) develops a
motivation- hygiene theory to explain
satisfaction and motivation
•Process theories attempt to explain JS by
looking at expectancies and values
•J. Stacy Adams developed equity theory and
propose that people perceived their Job as a
series of input and outcomes
Theories of JS……..
•Vroom developed the VIE theory
•Vroom generated a three variable equation
• Expectancy, the individual perception of how
well he or she can carry out the given task
•Instrumentality refers to the individuals’
confidence that he or she will be compensated
fairly for performing the task
• Valance considers the value of the expected
reward to the employee.
What Determines Job Satisfaction?

•coworkers, pay, supervision, kind of work,

personal growth and promotion prospects
-Cook, Hepworth, Wall and Warr, 1981-
•present job, present pay, opportunities for
promotion, supervision on present job, people
on present job. -Luthan 2002-
•pay, promotion, supervision, benefits,
contingent rewards, operating procedures,
coworkers, nature of work and
communication. -Spector 1997-
Cont….

Two main areas

personal determinants
race, gender, educational level, tenure, age
and marital status

organizational determinants
work itself, remuneration/pay, supervision,
promotion opportunities, coworkers, and job
status and job level
-Nel et al., 2004 -
Cont….
satisfactional factors
growth, advancement, responsibility, work
itself, recognition, and achievement

Dissatisfactional factors
Security, status, relationship with peers,
salary, and work condition, relationship with
supervisors, supervision, company policy and
administration
-Fredrick Herzberg ,1959 -
Emotional
Intelligence
Psychological Capital Job
Empathy Satisfaction
Gratitude
Forgiveness
Mindfulness
Work Itself

Pay

Promotion Job
Satisfaction
Co worker

Supervision

Working
Condition
Assessing Attitudes
How can we assess employees’ attitude?

Attitude surveys

Eliciting responses from employees through

questionnaires about how they feel about
their jobs, work groups, supervisors, and the
organization.
Measuring Job Satisfaction
The two most widely used approaches
are

1. Single global rating

2. Summation score method
Single Global Rating

•This method is nothing more than asking

individuals to respond to one question
such as All things considered, how
satisfied are you with your job?
•Respondents then reply by circling a
number between one and five that
corresponds with answers from “Highly
Satisfied” to “Highly Dissatisfied”
Single Global Rating………
Sample Questionnaire

Please put x mark on the appropriate box

Question Rating
1.Do you satisfied with your job? Highly satisfied ‫ٱ‬
Satisfied ‫ٱ‬
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
‫ٱ‬ Dissatisfied
‫ٱ‬
Highly dissatisfied ‫ٱ‬
Summation Score Method

This identifies key elements in a job

•Nature of Work
•Supervision
•Present pay
•Promotion Opportunities
•Relation with Co-workers and the
employees feeling /attitude about each
 Organizatio Job Customer
nal Performan Satisfacti
Commitmen ce on
t

Life Job
WLB
Satisfaction Satisfaction

Absenteeis Job Organizational

m Turnover Performance
Responses to Job Dissatisfaction

Active

Exit Voice

Destructive Constructive

Neglect Loyalty

Passive
Responses to Job Dissatisfaction…

Voice – Actively and

constructively attempting
to improve conditions Active

Loyalty – Passively but

optimistically waiting for Exit Voice
conditions to improve

Neglect Destructive Constructive

– Passively
allowing conditions to
worsen Neglect Loyalty

Exit– Behavior directed

toward leaving the Passive
organization
Practical approaches to enhance
Job Satisfaction

1. Make jobs more fun/ Design jobs to

make them exciting and satisfying
2. Have fair pay, benefits, and promotion
opportunities
3. Empathetic leadership
4. Match people with their jobs that fit
their interests and skills
- Personality Job fit
- Ability Job fit
Organizational commitment
•An attitudinal perspective refers to the
psychological attachment or affective
commitment formed by an employee in
relation to his identification and involvement
with the respective organization.
•He further explain this as “an attachment to
the organization, characterized by an intention
to remain in it; an identification with the values
and goals of the organization; and a
willingness to exert extra effort on its behalf.
-Porter et al., (1974)-
Cont…
The relative strength of an individual’s
identification with and involvement in a
particular organization
-Mowday et
al ,1982-
•Conceptually it can be characterized by at
least three factors
1.A strong desire to remain a member of a
particular organization
2.A willingness to exert high levels of effort on
behalf of the organization
3.A definite belief in and acceptance of the
values and goals of the organization
Meyer and Allen 1990
Tri-dimensional model
Affective Commitment (AC)
AC refers to employees’ emotional attachment
to, identification with and involvement in the
organization
(Luthan,2002)

Normative Commitment (NC)

Meyer and Allen (1997) define Normative
Commitment as employees’ feelings of
obligation to remain with an organization
(Luthan, 2002)
Cont….
Continuance Commitment (CC)
CC refers to commitment based on the cost
that employees associate with leaving the
organization, such as loss of income
-Luthan, 2002-
Meyer and Allen (1997) defined CC as
“awareness of the costs associated with
leaving the organization.”
Factors affecting to OC
•age
•years of service
• gender
•organizational tenure
•marital status
•individuals’ value, feelings, attitudes,
education, experience and personality
•the supervisory relationship
•Teams and groups
Cont…
Mowday et al., have identified four categories
of antecedents of OC in 1982 as;
1. Personal characteristic – age, tenure and
personality traits
2. Job characteristic- task autonomy, task
variety
3. Work experience – perceived pay equity,
Personal importance to the organization
4. Role related characteristic- role conflict,
role ambiguity
The outcomes of Organizational Commitment

Recent research summaries positive

relationship between organizational
commitment and desirable outcomes such as
high performance, low turnover, and low
absenteeism.
Practical approaches to enhance
Organizational Commitment

1. Clarify and communicate your mission/

Goals/ Values
2. Guarantee organizational justice- Organizational
justice refers to employee perceptions of fairness in the workplace
3.Create a sense of community- A sense of community is the
feeling that members have of belonging, the feeling that the members matter to one another and to
the group, and a shared faith that their needs will be met through their commitment to be together

4. Support employee development

Measuring Organizational Commitment
Sample Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)

Please answer each of the following statement using the

following rating scale

7= Strongly disagree
6= Moderately disagree
5= Slightly disagree
4= neither agree nor disagree
3= Slightly agree
2= Moderately agree
1= Strongly agree

Statement Rating
1. I feel very little loyalty to this organization ……..
2.I am proud to tell others that I am a part of this organization ……..
3.I really care about the fate of this organization ……..
Changing Attitudes

Are there any barriers to change the

attitudes?
YES !
1. Prior commitments
People have prior ideas and unwilling to
change
2.Insufficient information
people do not see any reason to change their
attitude
•Attitudes can be changed?

•How attitudes can be

changed?
 How attitudes can be change
1.Providing new information
Providing new information will change a person’s
beliefs and attitudes
2.Use of fear
Some researchers have found that fear can
cause some people to change their attitudes.
3.Resolving discrepancies
Resolving discrepancies between attitudes and
behavior- when a person has more than one offer of a job and he has to make
a choice, he often feels that his final choice may have been a mistake.
When he takes the new job and starts working, he will start having negative feelings
towards the jobs which he has not chosen and positive ones towards the job which he
How attitudes can be change………
4.Influence of friends or peers
5.The co opting approach
which means taking people who are
dissatisfied with a situation and getting them
involved in improving things
Organizational Citizenship Behaviour
(OCB)

OCB
Employee behaviour that goes above and
beyond the call of duty, is not part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, is not
formally rewarded, and contributes to
organizational effectiveness.
Forms of OCB

Altruism
helping out when a coworker is no
feeling well
Conscientiousness
staying late to finish a project
Civic Virtue
Volunteering for a community program
to represent the firm
Cont….

Sportsmanship
Sharing failure of a team project that
would have been successful by
following the members advice
Courtesy
being understanding and empathetic
even when provoked
-Thank You-