Managing People and Organizations

MBA ZG 511

BITS Pilani Dr. Jayashree Mahesh,

Pilani | Dubai | Goa | Hyderabad Department of Management, BITS Pilani.
 BITS Pilani
Pilani | Dubai | Goa | Hyderabad

Lecture- 3 Part 2
 Concepts to be Covered

• Diversity in Organizations (3.1)

• Attitudes and Job Satisfaction (3.2)
• Emotions and Moods (3.3)

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and Organizations

3
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 BITS Pilani
Pilani | Dubai | Goa | Hyderabad

T1 -Chapter- 3
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.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

5
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Quiz
• While hiring should a company focus on
• Attitude or Aptitude
• Attitude is the manner, disposition, feeling, and
position, etc.with regard to a person or thing. It is
the way you think about any particular person or
thing.
• Aptitude' is a capability or talent innate or acquired
for performing some particular task..
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
6
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Attitudes in Organizations
• Attitudes
– A person’s complexes of beliefs and feelings (evaluations or judgments)
about specific ideas, situations, other people
– Formed by a variety of forces: personal values, experiences,
personalities.
• Structural Components of Attitudes
– Affect: a person’s feelings toward something (words: love, sex and war)
– Cognitions: the knowledge a person presumes to have about
something (you like the class because of the teacher is outstanding)
– Intention: a component of an attitude that guides a person’s behavior

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

7
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Attitudes
Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects,
people, or events.
3 components of an attitude:
The emotional or
feeling segment
The opinion or of an attitude
belief segment of
an attitude
An intention to behave
in a certain way
toward someone or
something

See
SeeEEXXHHI IBBI ITT 3–1
3–1
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
3-8
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Example

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

9
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Just ponder for a while!
Attitude leads to Behaviour.

Can Behaviour lead to Attitudes?

i.e.
Do attitudes follow behaviour?

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

10
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 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 moderating factors:
• Importance of elements
• Degree of individual influence
• Rewards involved in dissonance

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

3-11
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Relationship
Between Attitudes and Behavior
 Moderating Variables:
Attitude  Attitude’s importance
Mitigating Variables

 Correspondence to behavior
 Accessibility
predicts  Presence of social pressures
 Whether a person has direct
experience with the attitude
Behavior
 The attitude-behavior relationship is likely
to be much stronger if an attitude refers to
something with which we have direct
personal experience.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
3-12
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Predicting Behavior from Attitudes
– Important attitudes have a strong relationship to behavior.
– The closer the match between attitude and behavior, the
stronger the relationship:
• Specific attitudes predict specific behavior
• General attitudes predict general behavior
– The more frequently expressed an attitude, the better
predictor it is.
– High social pressures reduce the relationship and may cause
dissonance.
– Attitudes based on personal experience are stronger
predictors.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
13
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 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
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
14
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Other Major Job Attitude (1/2)
• 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.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
15
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Other Major Job Attitude (2/2)…
(2/2)
• Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
– Degree to which employees believe the organization values
their contribution and cares about their well-being.
– Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in
decision-making, and supervisors are seen as supportive.
– High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance.
• Employee Engagement
– The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the job.
– Engaged employees are passionate about their work and
company.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
16
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
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.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

17
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
Review
1.Go through below caselet and answer the questions

 Ravi Goyal, 38, heads the international marketing of an engineering firm. He

travels to at least 20 countries in one year. He travels more than four times
in a year to some countries. He has learned to sleep on planes and taxis so
that he can start working as soon as he reaches his destination. He responds
to customer messages throughout the day. Even when he is home and gets
up in the middle of the night to check on his children, he logs on to his e-
mail id on his BlackBerry and sends a reply if there is an urgent message. He
says, “I do not count my hours of work. I just work for as long as I need to.”

1. Do you think that only certain individuals are attracted to these types of
jobs, or is it the characteristics of the jobs themselves that are satisfying?

2. Given that Ravi tends to be satisfied with his job, how might this satisfaction
relate to his job performance, citizenship behavior, and turnover?
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
18
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 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.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

19
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Causes of Job Satisfaction
• Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.
– Once an individual reaches a comfortable level of living,
there is no relationship between amount of pay and job
satisfaction.
• Personality can influence job satisfaction.
– Negative people are usually not satisfied with their jobs.
– Those with positive core self-evaluation are more satisfied
with their jobs.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

20
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
Employee Responses to Dissatisfaction
Active

Destructive Constructive

Passive
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
21
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 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.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

22
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 More Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
• Turnover
– Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
– Many moderating variables in this relationship.
• Economic environment and tenure
• Organizational actions taken to retain high performers and
to weed out lower performers
• Workplace Deviance
– Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize, abuse
substances, steal, be tardy, and withdraw.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of the impact of job satisfaction
on the bottom line, most managers are either unconcerned about
or overestimate worker satisfaction.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
3-23
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Pause and Ponder

1. What causes job satisfaction for you as an individual? For

most people, is pay or the work itself more important? For
you, what is important?

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

24
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Main Causes of Job Satisfaction
– Job conditions
• The intrinsic nature of the work itself, social
interactions, and supervision are important
predictors of job satisfaction.
– Personality
• People who have positive core self-evaluations,
who believe in their inner worth and basic
competence, are more satisfied with their jobs
than those with negative core self-evaluations.

MBA ZG511 - Managing People and

25
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956
 Implications for Managers
• Of the major job attitudes – job satisfaction, job involvement,
organizational commitment, perceived organizational support (POS),
and employee engagement – remember that an employee’s job
satisfaction level is the best single predictor of behavior.
• Pay attention to your employees’ job satisfaction levels as
determinants of their performance, turnover, absenteeism, and
withdrawal behaviors.
• Measure employee job attitudes objectively and at regular intervals
in order to determine how employees are reacting to their work.
• To raise employee satisfaction, evaluate the fit between the
employee’s work interests and the intrinsic parts of his/her job to
create work that is challenging and interesting to the individual.
• Consider the fact that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying
work environment.
MBA ZG511 - Managing People and
26
Organizations
BITS Pilani, Deemed to be University under Section 3 of UGC Act, 1956