Chapter 10 Attitudes, Job Satisfaction & Commitment Flashcards
What are Values?
A broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.
- What we consider good and bad.
- Values are motivational.
- Values are very general.
People tend to hold values structured around factors:
Achievement
* Power
* Autonomy
* Conformity
* Tradition &
* Social Welfare
Generational Differences in Values
- There are five distinctive generations in the workplace today:
- Silent (1925-1945)
- Baby Boomers (1946-1964)
- Generation X (1965-1979)
- Millennials (Generation Y) (1980-1994)
- Gen Z or iGen (1995-2012)
- Gen Alpha (2013-2025)
Generational Stereotypes
Traditionalists
* Respectful of authority and a high work ethic.
o Boomers
* Optimistic workaholics.
o Gen X:
* Cynical, confident, and pragmatic.
o Gen Y:
* Confident, social, demanding of feedback & somewhat unfocused.
o Gen Z or iGen or Centennials :
* may be more competitive, wants independence, will multi-task, wants to communicate face-to-face, is truly digital- native and wants to be catered to.
Cultural Differences in Values
There are differences in work-related values across cultures.
- Poor understanding of cross-cultural differences can cause a number
of negative outcomes: - foreign assignments to terminate early
- business negotiations to fail.
Work Centrality
Work is valued differently across cultures.
- Work centrality: the extent to which people perceive work as a central life
interest. - People for whom work was a central life interest work more hours.
Hofstede’s Study
Hofstede questioned over 116,000 IBM employees in 40 countries
about their work-related values.
- He discovered four basic dimensions along which work-related
values differed across cultures: - Power distance
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Masculinity/femininity
- Individualism/collectivism
Hofstede’s Study
- Subsequent work with Canadian Michael Bond, which catered more
to Eastern cultures, resulted in a fifth dimension: - Long-term/short-term orientation
Power Distance
The extent to which an unequal distribution of power is accepted by
society members.
Uncertainty Avoidance
- The extent to which people are uncomfortable with uncertain and
ambiguous situations.
Masculinity/Femininity
Masculine cultures clearly differentiate gender roles, support the dominance of men, and stress economic performance.
- Feminine cultures accept fluid gender roles, stress sexual equality,
and stress quality of life.
Individualism/Collectivism
Individualistic societies stress independence, individual initiative, and privacy.
- Collective cultures favour interdependence and loyalty to family or
clan.
Long-term/Short-term Orientation
Cultures with a long-term orientation stress persistence,
perseverance, thrift, and close attention to status differences.
- Cultures with a short-term orientation stress personal steadiness and
stability, face-saving, and social niceties
Differences in Percentage of Employees Satisfied with
Their Jobs 2019 Randstad Survey. Most Satisfied
89% India
* 88% Mexico
* 80% Turkey
* 79% Norway
* 78% U.S.
* 78% Denmark
* 75% Netherlands
* 74% U.K.
* 74% Canada
* 74% Brazil
* 74% China
* 73% Malaysia
Differences in Percentage of Employees Satisfied with
Their Jobs 2019 Randstad Survey. Least Satisfied
42% Japan
* 49% Hong Kong
* 61% Singapore
* 64% Hungary
* 64% Czech Republic
* 65% Greece
* 66% Sweden
* 68% France
* 68% Portugal
* 68% New Zealand
* 69% Italy
* 70% Argentina
What Are Attitudes?
An attitude is a fairly stable evaluative tendency to respond consistency to some specific object, situation, person, or category of people.
- Attitudes involve evaluations directed toward specific targets.
- They are more specific than values.
What are attitudes? part 2
Attitudes are tendencies to respond to the target of the attitude.
- Attitudes often influence our behavior toward some object, situation, person, or group.
- Attitude → Behavior
- Are attitudes always consistent with behavior?
Attitudes
Belief + Value → Attitude → Behavior
Consider the following example of a person experiencing work-family conflict:
“My job is interfering with my family life.” (Belief)
- “I dislike anything that hurts my family.” (Value)
- “I dislike my job.” (Attitude)
- “I’ll search for another job.” (Behaviour)
Why Worry About Employee Attitudes?
Outcome Satisfaction Commitment
Absenteeism −0.23 −0.23
Turnover −0.22 −0.23
Lateness −0.11 −0.29
Organizational citizenship
-0.24 -0.25
Counterproductive behavior
−0.37 −0.36
Performance -0.30 -0.17
Commitment 0.59
What Is Job Satisfaction?
A collection of attitudes that workers have about their jobs.
- Positive attitude or emotional state resulting from appraisal of one’s job
- Two aspects of satisfaction.
- Facet satisfaction refers to the tendency for an employee to be more or less satisfied with various facets of the job.
- The most relevant attitudes toward jobs are contained in a rather small
group of facets
Job Satisfaction Facets
The work itself
* Compensation
* Recognition
* Benefits
- Working conditions
- Supervision
- Co-workers
- Organizational policy
Measuring Job Satisfaction
A popular measure of job satisfaction is the Job Descriptive Index (JDI).
- It is designed around five facets of satisfaction: people, pay, supervision,
promotions, and the work itself. - Employees respond “yes,” “no,” or “?” in describing whether a particular word or phrase is descriptive of particular facets of their jobs.
The Job Descriptive Index (JDI) measures job satisfaction across five areas:
Work – “Fascinating,” “Boring”
Pay – “Well paid,” “Underpaid”
Promotion – “Good opportunities,” “Dead-end job”
Supervision – “Supportive,” “Hard to please”
Coworkers – “Friendly,” “Jealous”
Responses: Yes / No / Uncertain.
What Determines Job Satisfaction?
- We frequently find differences in job satisfaction expressed by
individuals performing the same job in a given organization such as
two nurses who work side by side.
Have the employee’s expectations been met?
Have the employee’s expectations been met?
* Realistic job previews (RJPs)
- Is the employee a good fit?
- Vocation
- Job
- Organization
- Coworkers and supervisor
- Have the employee’s needs, values, and wants been met?
- Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
- ERG Theory
- Two-Factor Theory
Person-Organization Fit
job-fit measures, is essentially compatibility between an employee and an organization. Person-organization fit is about the congruence of a candidate’s own beliefs and values with the mission, values, and ethics of your organization.
Equity Theory
Equity will be perceived when the following distribution ratios exist:
My inputs Other’s inputs
Fairness
Issues of fairness affect both what
people want from their jobs and
how they react to the inevitable
discrepancies of organizational life.
There are three basic kinds of
fairness:
Distributive fairness
* Procedural fairness
* Interactional fairness
Distributive Fairness
Fairness that occurs when people receive the outcomes they think
they deserve from their jobs.
- It involves the ultimate distribution of work rewards and resources.
- Individuals want “what’s fair.”
- Equity theory provides a way of understanding how people
determine what is fair.
Procedural Fairness
Fairness that occurs when the process used to determine work
outcomes is seen as reasonable.
- It is concerned with how outcomes are decided and allocated.
- It is particularly relevant to outcomes such as performance
evaluations, pay raises, promotions, layoffs, and work assignments.
In allocating outcomes, the following factors contribute to
perceptions of procedural fairness. The allocator:
Follows consistent procedures over time and across people.
- Uses accurate information and appears unbiased.
- Allows two-way communication during the allocation process.
- Welcomes appeals of the procedure or allocation.
Interactional Fairness
- Fairness that occurs when people feel that they have received
respectful and informative communication about an outcome. - Interactional fairness is important because it is possible for
absolutely fair outcomes or procedures to be perceived as unfair
when they are inadequately or uncaringly explained.
Disposition/ Could your personality contribute to your feelings of job satisfaction?
- The dispositional view of job satisfaction is based on the idea that
some people are predisposed by virtue of their personalities to be
more or less satisfied despite changes in discrepancy or fairness.
Judge and Bono (2001) Meta-Analysis
found that Extraversion predicts transformational leadership, while Neuroticism hinders it. Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) (self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, emotional stability) boost leadership, job satisfaction, and performance.
Personality Meta-Analysis
refers to the systematic review and analysis of existing research on personality traits.
Contributors to Job Satisfaction/
* The facets that seem to contribute the most to feelings of job
satisfaction for most North American workers include:
Mentally challenging work
* Adequate compensation
* Career opportunities
* People (friendly or helpful colleagues)
Mentally Challenging Work
Work that tests employees’ skills and abilities, allows them to set
their own working pace, and provides them with clear performance
feedback.
- Employees usually perceive such work as personally involving and
important. - Some employees prefer repetitive, unchallenging work that makes
few demands on them.
Adequate Compensation
Pay & satisfaction are positively related.
- Most employees expect to receive an adequate amount of
compensation. - Not everyone is equally desirous of money and some people are
willing to accept less responsibility or fewer working hours for lower
pay.
Career Opportunities
The availability of career opportunities & opportunities for
promotion.
- Promotions contain material and social signals about a person’s self-
worth. - There are cultural and individual differences in what people see as
constituting a fair promotion system
People
Friendly, considerate, good-natured superiors and co-workers.
- The ability of others to help us do our work and attain outcomes
that we value also contributes to job satisfaction. - The friendliness aspect is most important in lower-level jobs with
clear duties and in dead-end jobs.
Consequences of Job Satisfaction/
* Job satisfaction has a number of consequences:
- Absence from work
- Turnover
- Performance
- Organizational Citizenship Behaviour
- Customer Satisfaction and Profit
The Honeymoon-Hangover Effect
The “honeymoon effect,” when the bad facets of the old job are
gone, the good facets of the new job are apparent and the bad
facets of the new job are not yet known.
- Over time, the bad facets of the new job are recognized, a
“hangover effect” in which overall job satisfaction decreases.
Progression of Withdrawal.
the theory that people develop a set of behaviors in succession to avoid their work situation.
Organizational Commitment/ There are three very different types of organizational commitment:
- Affective commitment
- Continuance commitment
- Normative commitment
Affective Commitment
Commitment based on a person’s identification and involvement
with an organization.
Continuance Commitment
Commitment based on the costs that would be incurred in leaving
an organization.
Normative Commitment
- Commitment based on ideology or a feeling of obligation to an
organization.
Absenteeism
Workers missed work (Canadian Census, 2020)
o 2016 – 9.5 days
o 2020 – 11.6 days
Moderately correlated with turnover
Why do employees leave (turnover)?
- Unavoidable Reasons
- School starts
- Job transfer
- Illness
- Family issues
- Advancement
- More responsibility
- Better pay
- Unmet Needs
Why do employees leave (turnover)? Escape from and Unmet Expectations
Escape From
* People
* Management
* Coworkers
* Customers
* Working conditions
* Stress
- Unmet Expectations
- Organization
- Job
- Career
Reducing Turnover/Selection Issues:
- Conduct realistic job previews
- Look for person-organization fit
- Study predictors of people who leave
Reducing Turnover/ Compensation Issues
Watch the market
- Use job evaluations to ensure equity
- Offer retention/tenure bonuses (stay for pay)
Counterproductive Behaviors
Individuals
- Gossip
- Negative politics
- Harassment
- Workplace violence
- Bullying
Organization
* Theft
* Sabotage
o Personality Types
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
Little things” not required of an employee
* Staying late to finish a project
* Mentoring an employee
* Volunteering for committees
* Negative correlation between OCBs and employee
counterproductive behaviour
Increasing Attendance/ 10
- Consequences for Missing Work
- Rewards for Attending
- Financial incentives
- Well pay
- Financial bonuses
- Games
- Paid time-off programs
- Recognition programs
- Discipline for Not Attending
- Clear Policy and Record Keeping
Increasing Attendance/ 6
- Reducing Employee Stress
- Reducing illness
- Not hiring “absence-prone”
employees - Uncontrollable absenteeism
- Bad weather
