Topic- Individual Differences This should include Job attitudes, consequences of job dissatisfaction and other job attitudes. Please find below some information from the prescribed books in regards to each elements 1.Job Attitudes Hi and welcome to Organizational Behavior. we will discuss job attitudes and their importance for understanding work behavior and work outcomes. Individual Performance Recall that in organisational behaviour, individual performance is a function of ability, motivation and opportunity to act. Under ability factors, we have previously discussed personality. In this video, we will add attitudes, and job-related attitudes in particular, as an important individual difference. Background: Attitudes An attitude is a predisposition to respond in a positive or negative way to someone or something in your environment. Attitudes cannot be seen or touched; they can only be inferred from the things that people say and/or do. Attitudes are understood to have three basic components: beliefs, feelings and behavioural intentions. Attitude-Behaviour Link The components of attitudes systematically relate to one another and contribute to the overall attitude and subsequent behaviour. Beliefs include knowledge, thoughts and values that are relevant to the attitude object, such as “My job lacks responsibility” or “responsibility is important to me”. Feelings generally refer to the evaluation of those beliefs, such as “I dislike that my job doesn’t include responsibility”. Behavioural intentions include intended actions such as “I will look for another job” or “I won’t go to work today”. Attitudes are important because they often lead to actual behaviour, such as quitting the disliked job. But this relationship is tentative. Often, behaviours don’t match a person’s attitudes. This mis-match can happen for a number of reasons. One is that emotions and moods affect all aspects of the attitude-behaviour link. For example, if we are in a good mood, it is easier to remember all the good things about our job than if we are in a bad mood. So, if we are asked to complete a satisfaction survey while we happen to be in a good mood, our ratings of job satisfaction are likely to be higher than if we complete the same survey while in a bad mood. Also, the attitude-behaviour link all occurs within the constraints of the perceived environment. For example, sometimes people publicly state that they hold a particular attitude due to peer pressure or social norms, but privately they may not mean it. For example, if someone is complaining about the job, but you actually quite like it and enjoy the job…you might keep your enthusiasm to yourself or even tell others that you also dislike the job. Attitudes are more likely to predict behaviours when the attitude is central to the person’s self-image and when the environment allows a person to act on it. For example, if you think of yourself as a loyal person who meets obligations and duties, you will probably be more likely to stick with a job than someone who cares less about loyalty. Attitude-Behaviour Link Another reason that attitudes aren’t always straightforward predictors of behaviour is because of cognitive dissonance, which refers to a state of perceived inconsistency between a person’s expressed attitudes and actual behaviour. For example, if you believe that autonomy is important in a job, but you have perfect attendance at a job with very little autonomy, you may feel cognitive dissonance. This inconsistency is uncomfortable, and people are motivated to try to resolve it one of three ways: First, you can change the underlying attitude. For example, you might decide that autonomy isn’t that important to you after all. You might change the behavior or the future behavior. So for example, you might quit the job. Finally, you can explain away or rationalize the inconsistency. For example, you might rationalize that while autonomy is important for you in the long run, you’re only using this job as a stepping stone to your career. Most of the time, people will resolve the inconsistency using whichever of the three methods is available and easy to accomplish. Job Satisfaction One of the most important work-related job attitudes is job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the degree to which individuals feel positively or negatively about their jobs. You may have a global or general sense of your job satisfaction, and this is one way that job satisfaction can be measured. In fact, it is often a pretty good indicator of satisfaction. But OB researchers are also interested in facets that contribute to job satisfaction. Typical facets of job satisfaction include: • The work itself, which can include the level of responsibility, interest and growth • Quality of supervision, which might include the technical help and social support that’s provided by management • Relationships with co-workers, such as the social harmony and respect within a team. • Promotion opportunities and chances for further advancement • And pay, which can refer to the level of pay itself, as well as the perceived equity or fairness of pay compared to what similar others receive. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction is associated with some important OB outcomes that are important to managers. For example, workers high in satisfaction are more likely than workers low in satisfaction to engage in the discretionary and organizational citizenship behaviours that help the organization to be successful. Satisfied workers are also a bit better about showing up to their jobs on time and as scheduled. Satisfied workers also express lower intention to leave their jobs. But the relationship between job satisfaction and actual turnover is much weaker, due in part to situational factors. Another important relationship is that research shows that workers who are more satisfied also tend to be a bit more productive and better at completing the in-role, task behaviours. But we also know that job satisfaction has a stronger relationship to performance when performance is rewarded and when jobs are complex, which often reflects that those employees have more direct influence on what they do in their jobs. For mundane jobs, such as simply assembly line positions, job satisfaction does not predict job performance. 2.Job Attitudes: Consequences of Job Dissatisfaction Job Dissatisfaction Recall that job satisfaction is associated with some important OB outcomes that are important to managers, including turnover intentions and actual turnover. However, the relationship between job dissatisfaction and turnover is much lower than what we might at first expect. But if you think about this briefly, it probably makes a bit of sense. Have you, or someone you know, ever stayed at a job that you didn’t like? The answer is probably yes. Within OB, the fact that people stay is interesting itself, but the reasons and alternative behaviours are just as interesting. As we noted earlier, current job satisfaction is affected by any number of factors that are unrelated to how satisfied you actually are. One example is emotions. So this is one reason why the relationship between measured job satisfaction and performance and turnover isn’t always very strong. Another reason is that there are many ways to express one’s job dissatisfaction. How Employees Can Express Dissatisfaction One common way of categorizing the possible responses is based on whether the behavior is constructive or destructive and whether the behavior is active or passive. This results in four main types of behavior: exit, voice, loyalty and neglect or the EVLN Model. It can also sometimes be helpful to remember that these behaviours also correspondents to similar behaviours in romantic relationships, which is another context where the model has been applied. The first dimension is whether the behavior is constructive or destructive. This refers to the constructive or destructive toward the relationship itself. Constructive behaviours promote and sustain the relationship, whereas destructive behaviours harm the relationship. And of course here, the relationship is referring to that between employee and the organization. The second dimension is whether the behavior is active or passive. This refers to whether the employee is engaging in a specific behavior, or essentially sitting back. So if we think about the destructive behaviours first, these are the ones that are negative and harmful to the overall relationship. Exit is behavior directed toward leaving the organization, which may include actually resigning, but it also includes actively looking for a new position. Here, the employee is engaging in explicit behavior to try to end the relationship. Passive and destructive behaviours are referred to as neglect. Neglect is passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate. Here, the ultimate outcome is likely to be an end to the employment relationship, but the employee isn’t actively engaging in behaviours to end it. Essentially, the employee is just leaving the relationship to atrophy. On the constructive side, these behaviours are intended to maintain or retain the relationship. Voice is actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions. This could include suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity. Loyalty is passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve. Loyalty could include speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism, and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.” How Employees Can Express Dissatisfaction Research using this model has helped to clarify when each response is more likely to occur. Constructive responses are more likely when employees were previously satisfied with the organisation and their job. They may be more likely to see the current dip in satisfaction as a blip or bump in the road. Employees who are highly invested in the organization may also be more likely to engage in constructive responses. Investments essentially refer to what the employee might lose by leaving the job or organisation. This could include time, friends, networks, pay and benefits, and employees who are part of a union also tend to be more invested. The more invested the employee is, the more reasons they have to try to get the relationship and organisation to work more effectively. This can help to explain why in organisations with high union membership, satisfaction and turnover are often both low. Constructive responses are also more likely when the person is optimistic, either due to a personal trait or due to their expectations for the specific job or role. Neglect is more likely to occur when the person feels that action would be costly or ineffective. They may have tried to speak up before, but they saw that nothing happened or they saw others get penalised for speaking out. The two active responses of exit and voice are more likely when the person has good alternatives to the job and the organisation. For example, high talent employees who are in high demand don’t depend on the organisation for good outcomes such as high pay. If they like the organisation, co-workers, and so forth, they may engage in voice. But if they don’t care, they may just leave. Job Satisfaction and Job Attitudes: Implications for Managers Essentially, what the research on job attitudes tells us is that managers should watch employee attitudes as they give warnings of potential problems and they influence behaviours. Sound measurement of employee attitudes and job satisfaction in particular is one of the most important pieces of information that an organization can have about its employees. Managers should try to increase job satisfaction and generate positive job attitudes because this will lead to lower costs and higher performance, thru lower absenteeism, lower counterproductive behavior and higher organizational citizenship behaviours. But, managers who see positive responses on job satisfaction or engagement surveys, or who see low turnover rates, should not be complacent. These are not a guarantee that employees are happy with their jobs. To increase job satisfaction, managers should focus on making work challenging and interesting, focusing on the intrinsic parts job, not just pay. Offering low pay probably won’t attract the best talent, but offering high pay is not sufficient to create a satisfying workplace. We will discuss this issue in greater depth when we discuss motivation. 3.Job Attitudes: Beyond Job Satisfaction Hi and welcome to organizational behavior.In this we will discuss important job attitudes including organizational commitment and perceived organizational support. Important Job Attitudes – Organisational Commitment We have already discussed job satisfaction as the degree to which an individual feels positively or negatively about his or her job. Job satisfaction is the most widely studied and most widely measured job attitude, but it is not the only one that matters. Organizational Commitment refers to a state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and a state of wishing to remain and maintain membership with that organization. In everyday terms, organizational commitment is similar to loyalty. There is a modest positive relationship between organizational commitment and task performance. There is also a negative relationship between organizational commitment and absenteeism and turnover. Committed workers tend to work harder, are less prone to absence, and are less likely to leave the organization compared to workers with low in organizational commitment. Indeed, highly committed employees are less likely to withdraw from work even if they’re dissatisfied, due in part to this sense of loyalty. There are three forms of organisational commitment. Affective commitment is based on emotional attachment to the organisation. This is the type of organisational commitment that is most strongly related to positive work outcomes. Continuance commitment is based on the economic value of staying with the organization. People high in continuance commitment have a lot invested in the organisation or their workplace, or they have might have few alternatives available to them, or it would be too costly for them to leave the organization. Normative commitment refers to commitment based on a perceived moral or ethical obligation. For example, you may feel obligated to stay with the organisation if the supervisor took a chance on you and gave you some important breaks. You may also have a sense of moral obligation to stick with your team. Important Job Attitudes – POS Perceived Organizational Support or POS refers to the degree to which employees believe the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. According to perceived support theory, the relationship between the employee and the organisation is basically an exchange. Employees look at what they are contributing to the organization in terms of their time, effort, high performance, and so forth, and they look at what they are getting in return. POS is higher when rewards are perceived as fair. In other words, when employees feel they are fairly compensated and rewarded for their efforts. POS is also higher when employees feel they have some input into the decision-making process. Employee involvement in decision-making is a signal that the organization values the input and contributions of the employees. POS is also higher when employees perceive that their supervisors are supportive. Indeed, supervisors or managers are the principal ‘agents’ or representatives of the organization according this this theory. So the supervisor is essentially a proxy for the organization. High Perceived Organisational Support is related to important organizational outcomes, including higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors, lower levels of tardiness, and better customer service. Note that this relationship tends to be stronger among employees who see the employment relationship as an exchange, such as among employees who prefer low power distance. Important Job Attitudes – Employee Engagement Finally, employee engagement refers to individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work that he or she does. Highly engaged employees are thought to have a passion for their work and a deep connection to their organization, whereas disengaged employees have essentially checked out—putting time but not energy or attention into their work. Most surveys in industry indicate that very few employees—between 17 percent and 29 percent—are highly engaged in their work. So there are a lot of potential job attitudes that we could study and think about in the workplace, including quite a few that we haven’t even mentioned here. So are all of these job attitudes actually distinct? Well, yes and no. All of these job attitudes are highly related. For example, knowing someone’s level of affective commitment gives a good idea of that person’s level of POS. But there are some unique aspects captured, such as loyalty and enthusiasm.