Psychology 245

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Psychology 245

• Job Attitudes Antecedents and Consequences
• Chapter 10

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Attitudes

• Attitude (Fishbein Ajzen, 1975).
• A positive or negative feeling a person might
  have toward a person, place, or thing.
• Why study job attitudes?
• Long been assumed that attitudes influence work
  behavior.
• Improvement of job attitudes is an end in itself.

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Job Satisfaction

• Pleasurable, positive emotional state resulting
  from the cognitive appraisal of ones job or job
  experience.
• This is the traditional definition of job
  satisfaction. More on this later
• Practitioners have always viewed it as an
  important determinant of productivity.
• Once again, this is a traditional view. More on
  this later

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Framework for Job Satisfaction
Consequences
Antecedents
Performance Withdrawal Behaviors Counterproductive
behaviors
Job Characteristics Individual differences Social
Factors Growth opportunities
Job Satisfaction
Individual differences some people are always
satisfied Social factors Relationships at work
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Job Characteristics

• From Hackman and Oldhams Job Characteristics
  Model
• Structure of job and what job provides affects
  job satisfaction
• Spector and Jex (1991) Employees perceptions of
  job characteristics and job satisfaction are
  positively related (r .3 - .4) which is fairly
  large
• Daily Hassles negatively related to job
  satisfaction (Hart, 1999).

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Individual Characteristics

• Staw (1986) and colleagues
• Satisfaction is stable over time.
• Suggest individual differences play an important
  role in determining job sat.
• Affective Disposition
• Tendency to respond to classes of environmental
  stimuli in predetermined ways.
• e.g. chronically cynical
• Other evidence suggests that job sat. fluctuates.
• Genetic factors may play an important role in
  satisfaction (Arvey et al., 1989).

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Social Factors

• Relationships with supervisors and coworkers are
  important predictors of job satisfaction.
• Think about a really good job
• Organizational Justice
• Employee perceptions of fairness of outcomes,
  policies/procedures, treatment received at work.
• Affects attitudes, behaviors, and consequences
• Treatment equality

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Growth Opportunities

• Perceptions of potential for Development and
  Promotion
• If we perceive we will continue to make more
  money and get promoted, we will be satisfied with
  our jobs at least to a limited extent.
• Sometimes opportunities for growth at work and in
  the family can conflict and become a source of
  stress.
• Especially important for dual earner families.

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Herzbergs Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction
(discredited)

• Most theories of job satisfaction,
  unidimensional
• However, according to Herzberg, Job satisfaction
  is qualitatively different from Job
  dissatisfaction.
• Herzberg Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction are
  different factors/traits/dimensions.
• Can be high in both

Low DISsatisfaction
High Satisfaction
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So, according to Herzberg

JOB SATISFACTION
High
Low
JOB DISSATISFACTION
High
Low
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Herzberg cont

• Motivator factors
• elements related to job content
• E.g. level of responsibility and autonomy, and
  chances for recognition, advancement and personal
  achievement
• presence causes high satisfactionabsence causes
  low satisfaction
• Hygiene factors
• elements related to job context
• E.g. base salary, benefits, physical and social
  working conditions, type of supervision, company
  policies
• presence causes low dissatisfactionabsence
  causes high dissatisfaction

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Global vs. Facet Approach to Job Satisfaction

• Global Approach Looks at job satisfaction
  overall.
• Is employee satisfied overall?
• Facet Approach Looks at different
  elements/facets of the job.
• e.g., pay, supervisor, coworkers, etc.
• Is employee satisfied with regard to each of
  these facets?
• Overall satisfaction is sum of satisfaction with
  facets.

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Advantages of facet approach

• Can find out whether
• employees are satisfied with some facets of work
  and dissatisfied with others.
• some facets are more important to employees than
  others.

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Measures of Job Satisfaction

• Two of the most widely used measures/scales of
  job satisfaction
• Job Descriptive Index (JDI)
• Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)
• JDI
• Facet approach. Five facets of satisfaction
• 1. supervisor
• 2. coworkers
• 3. pay
• 4. promotions
• 5. work itself

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JDI facets with two sample items

• Work on present job
• _____ Fascinating
• _____ Pleasant
• Present Pay
• _____ Barely live on income.
• _____ Well paid
• Promotion
• _____ opportunities somewhat limited.
• _____ Regular promotions

• Supervision
• _____ Doesnt supervise enough
• _____ Around when needed
• Coworkers
• _____ Stimulating
• _____ Unpleasant
• Job in General
• _____ Pleasant
• _____ Worse than most

Complement facet with global
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Other measures of Job Satisfaction

• Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire
• Another facet approach to job sat.
• Measures 20 satisfaction facets
• JDS (Hackman and Oldham)
• Overall measure of job sat.
• Generally speaking I am very satisfied with this
  job.
• Faces Scale
• Also an overall measure of job sat.
• Measures the more emotional, affective, component
  of satisfaction.
• ? ? etc..

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Consequences of Job Satisfaction Job Performance

• Find relationship between job satisfaction and
  job performance -- main goal of field
• Holy Grail of I/O psychology
• Satisfied employees are productive employees?
• Possibly most researched relationship in I/O
  psychology.
• Generally accepted relationship (based on
  meta-analysis) is only r ? 0.17
• Conflict with intuition that satisfaction
  predicts performance

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A Broader Conceptualization of Job Performance

• Traditionally, we think of performance as task
  performance
• Task performance Behaviors directly
  influencing core technical system of
  organization.
• But, there are also several of behaviors that may
  be considered as part of performance.
• Though they may not be highly related to task
  performance at the level of the individual, they
  are nonetheless important in determining the
  performance of the organization.

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Behaviors of job performance

• Several families of behaviors indicating job
  performance
• Organizational Citizenship Behaviors_(OCB), also
  known as Contextual Performance (CP)
• Not in job description but still
• helping coworkers and supervisor
• volunteering for things not required
• praising organization to outsiders
• supporting organizations values
• Work Withdrawal Behaviors (WW)
• absenteeism
• lateness
• taking more or longer breaks
• low effort at work

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More behaviors of job performance

• Organization Retaliation Behaviors (ORB)
• destroying/vandalizing company equipment
• stealing supplies
• getting into fights or arguments at work
• spreading malicious rumors about coworkers or
  supervisor
• Job Withdrawal Behaviors (JW)
• making plans to quit job
• investigating alternative employment
  opportunities
• updating résumé

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A Broader Conceptualization of Job Satisfaction

• Traditional view
• Job Satisfaction is an attitude
• cognitive/evaluative
• fairly stable over time
• New view (Affective Events Theory)
• Job Satisfaction has two parts
• job attitudes (see above)
• Affect (mood) at work
• transitory and fluctuating

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According to Affective Events Theory
Affect at Work
Unpleasantness
Pleasantness

• Affect at work predicts spontaneous work
  behaviors
• e.g., OCB, WW (work withdrawal), ORB
  (counterproductive behaviors)
• while job satisfaction attitudes predict more
  planned, deliberate work behaviors
• e.g., JW (job withdrawal)
• Affect at work should influence future job
  satisfaction attitudes

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Analyzing satisfaction and performance at the
individual level

• At the level of the individual employee
  (conventional level)
• Individual employees vary in average job
  satisfaction attitudes and in average task
  performance levels.
• We have known this all along.
• This is the information we used to obtain the
  0.17 correlation.
• Individual employees also vary in average levels
  of mood and average levels of OCB, WW, ORB, JW.

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Broaden the definition

• So, we should be looking at the correlation
  between satisfaction (broadly defined) and
  performance (broadly defined), where
• Satisfaction (broadly defined) mood job
  satisfaction attitudes.
• Performance (broadly defined) task performance
  OCB WW ORB JW.
• i.e., we should be looking at whether individuals
  who are more satisfied (broadly defined) are also
  more productive (broadly defined).
• This correlation is likely to be somewhat higher
  than 0.17.
• No meta-analysis yet, so definitive conclusions
  would be premature.

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Analyzing satisfaction and performance WITHIN the
individual

• At the level of the time of measurement within
  the individual employee (new level)
• There is a substantial amount of variance in
  mood, job satisfaction attitudes, task
  performance, OCB, WW, ORB, JW within
  individuals over time. Probably more than between
  people even.
• So, at this level, we should be looking at
  whether individuals are more productive (broadly
  defined) when they are more satisfied (broadly
  defined).
• This correlation is likely to be somewhat higher
  than 0.17.
• No meta-analysis yet, so definitive conclusions
  would be premature.

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Increasing Job Satisfaction (Attitudes)

• Changes in job structure
• Job rotation
• systematic movement of employees from one
  position to another
• alleviates boredom and monotony
• allows employees to be trained on several
  different tasks
• Job enlargement
• expansion of a job to include additional, more
  varied job tasks
• need to be careful, since additional work might
  be perceived as negative

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Changes in pay structure

• Merit-based pay
• employees pay is proportional to their
  performance
• merit pay also known as pay-for-performance
• Note usually get fixed (standard) base-pay plus
  some amount based on performance.
• Tricky to implement because indiv. goals might
  vary from organizational goals.
• Gainsharing bonus received by all members of a
  unit if the unit achieves a certain performance
  goal.
• Profit Sharing compensation plan wherein all
  employees receive a small share of organizations
  profits.
• e.g., stock options

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Benefits programs

• Benefits can take several forms, e.g.
• flex-time
• Allowing employees the option to start and end
  their work days at whatever times they choose.
• compressed work schedules
• Allowing employees to work longer hours so they
  can work fewer days in the week.
• Typically 4 10-hour days and then 3-day weekend.
• health care options
• retirement plans
• on-site child care (day-care) programs

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Increasing Job Satisfaction (Mood)

• Mood at work is influenced by
• mood hangovers from events external to work
• need to control for morning mood
• events at work
• positive events (e.g., praise) ? better mood
• negative events (e.g., criticism) ? worse mood
• However, asymmetry exists
• Positive events occur more frequently than
  negative events
• ButEffect of negative events gt Effect of
  positive events.
• Therefore, for interventions
• at all costs, avoid negative events (first
  priority)
• try to create positive events (if possible)

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Organizational Commitment
done with satisfaction

• Relative strength of a persons identification
  and involvement in a particular organization.
• Loyalty
• Three components
• Affective commitment - emotional attachment
• Strong belief in the orgs values and goals,
  willingness to exert effort on behalf of org, and
  strong desire to remain with the organization.
• Continuance commitment
• Attachment to the organization because of the
  high cost of leaving.
• Normative commitment
• Attachment to the organization as a result of a
  sense of obligation. Moral commitment.

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Consequences of organizational commitment

• Correlation between affective commitment and task
  performance
• .15 to .25
• Affective commitment also related to OCBs.
• Small negative relationship between affective
  commitment and absenteeism.
• Strong negative relationship between affective
  commitment and turnover.

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Emotions and Work

• Recent focus of research attention
• Emotional Regulation
• How employees influence and express their
  emotions.
• Why is this potentially important TODAY?
• customer service, food servers etc.
• Emotional Labor
• The effort, planning and control required by
  employees to express organizationally desired
  emotions to match organizations display rules.
• Especially relevant for service jobs.

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Emotions and Work

• Emotional labor likely increased by the amount of
  emotional dissonance employees experience at
  work
• The rift between inward feeling and required
  outward displays of emotions.
• Emotional Dissonance leads to
• Stress, burnout, and poor performance.
• Implications for selection and placement again,
  relevant to customer service.
• Person-environment fit (PE Fit).