Chapter 3: Employee Attitude and Their Behavior

Definition of employee attitudes

Attitude is the persistent tendency, to feel and behave in a favorable or unfavorable way towards some object,
person, or ideas. Attitudes are the feelings and beliefs that determine how employees will perceive the
environment and ultimately behave.
Attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness organized through-experience, exerting a directive or dynamic
influence upon the individuals response to all objects and situations with which it is related.
It forms a mental set that affects how we view and judge our surroundings at work. The attitudes are two types:

Positive attitudes or favorable: it results employee satisfaction, high productivity, etc.

Negative or unfavorable: it results strike, work slowdown, absence, and employee turnover, etc.

Features of attitude
There are some features of employee attitude. These are as follows:
Attitudes affect behavior of an individual by putting him ready to respond favorably or unfavorably to
things in his environment.
Attitudes are acquired through learning over the period of time. The process of learning attitudes starts
right from childhood and continues throughout the life of a person.
Attitudes are invisible as they constitute a psychological phenomenon which cannot be observed
directly. They can be observed by observing the behavior of an individual.
Attitudes are pervasive and every individual has some kind of attitudes towards the objects in the
environment, in fact, attitudes are forced in the socialization process and may relate to anything in the
environment.

Component of employee attitudes

Three components of employee attitudes are:

Job satisfaction
Job involvement
Organizational commitment.

Job satisfaction: Job satisfaction is a set of favorable and unfavorable feelings and emotions with which
employee view their work. It is a feeling of like or dislike toward something.
It has some nature and characteristics. They are:
It gives focus to the attitude of a single employee.
It can be applied to various parts of an individuals job.
Its stability is dynamic. It can be decline even more quickly than it develops.
Job satisfaction is one part of life satisfaction. Thats why it is influenced by the family life and other
environment issues.
Job involvement: Job involvement is the degree to which employees engage themselves in their job, invest time
and energy in to them and view work as a central part of them overall lives.

Job

Politics

Family
Life

Religion

Leisure

Figure: some related elements of life satisfaction

Organizational Commitment: Organizational Commitment is the degree to which an employee identifies with
the organization, and wants to continue activity participating in it.

Effect of employee attitudes

High satisfaction always leads to high employee performance. This assumption is not always correct. Satisfied
workers may have high, average, or even low level of performance.
The satisfaction-performance relationship is more complex than the simple path of satisfaction leads to
performance. Actually performance leads to satisfaction. The following figure will clarify the argument:
Performance

Greater or
lesser effort

Rewards
Economic
Sociological
Psychological

Turnover
Absenteeism
Tardiness
Theft

Perception
Fair
Unfair

Satisfaction or
dissatisfaction

Greater or lesser
commitment

Fig: The performance satisfaction-effort loop.

Factors in attitude formation

The attitudes are learned. Thus for attitude formation, all those factors must be taken into account from which
people learn. Such factors may be analyzed in terms of groups. There are two types of factors like group factors
and personality factors. These are explained below.

Group factors: the influence of groups on the attitudes of individuals is inversely proportional to the distance
of the group from the individual. From this point of view, three types of groups have different types of effect on
the attitudes of a person.
1. Family: the term family may be uses in variety of ways; it may include a nuclear family which means
the immediate group of father, mother, and children; an extended family includes nuclear family and
other relatives. Both these types of family have influence on the attitudes of individuals. In fact, when a
person starts learning anything about the world, he learns it through his mother which is known as the
process of socialization. Family has two important roles. First, other family members have certain
personality characteristics, evaluative criteria, and attitudes, and the family as a whole has certain
attitudes and values which are shared by all other persons. Second, family mediates the influence of
large social systems on the individuals attitudes, values, and personality characteristics.
2. Reference groups: the awareness and learning of behavior alternatives is accomplished efficiently
through the influence of reference groups. A reference group is any interacting aggregation of people
that influences an individuals attitudes or behavior. This group may include family or other types of
groupings, either primarily or secondary groups. Reference groups serve important inputs to an
individuals learning of his attitudes and awareness of alternative behaviors and life style.
3. Social factors: the social classes have important influence on individuals attitudes. They have the
important task of transmitting cultural behavior patterns to specific groups and families. They define the
expectations of society for groups of people and for families within the groups. The family then
transmits this cultural expectation to the individual.
Personality factors: personality factors are important in attitude formation. However, many personality
characteristics themselves are determined by group and social factors. Personality differences between
individuals are very important concomitant of the discussion of attitudes. There was a coherent pattern of
ethnocentric attitudes including anti-Semitism among persons having authoritarian personality. There is a
relationship between personality correlates of conservatism and liberalism.

Relation between job satisfaction to turn over and absenteeism

Job satisfaction

High

Low
Low

Turnover and absences

High

Fig: Relation between job satisfaction to turn over and absenteeism

Job satisfaction survey

A Job satisfaction survey is a procedure by which employees report their feelings toward their jobs and works
environments. Individual responses are then collected, combined and analyzed to identify the level of job
satisfaction of respondents.

Benefits of job satisfaction Survey

Job satisfaction survey gives management and indication of general level of satisfaction in a company.
It indicates the specific areas of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
The survey is a powerful diagnostic instrument for assessing measure employee problems.
It includes the flow of communication among different groups of employee in organization
Training needs can be identified to the help of job satisfaction survey.
Survey can help managers to plan and monitor new programs.

Ideal survey preconditions

Top management activity support the survey

Employees are fully involved in planning the survey.
A clean objective exists for conducting the survey.
The study is designed and administrated in a manner consistent with standards for sound research.
Management is capable of taking, and willing to take, follow-up action.
Both the results and action plans are communicated to employees.

Hofstedes Framework for assessing cultures

One of the most widely referenced approaches for analyzing variations among culture has been done by Geert
Hofstede. He surveyed more than 116,000 IBM employees in 40countries about their work-related values. He
found that managers and employees vary on five dimensions of national culture.
They are listed and defined as follows:
1. Power distance
A national culture attribute describing the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and
organizations is distributed inequality. This dimension deals with the desirability or undesirability of inequality
and of dependence versus interdependence. It shows how the culture adapts to inequalities among its members.
Where power distances are low,
o
o
o
o
o

People put a high value on independence

Managers consult with subordinate before making decisions.
There is a fairly strong work
Organization culture tend to be flat
Managers directly supervise more subordinates

For example US, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain.

Where distances are high,
o
o
o
o
o

Authority is obeyed without question

Managers make automatic and paternalistic decision
Business structures are featured by close control operations
Organization cultures tend to be full
Managers have few subordinates to report.

For example: Asian countries like Malaysia, Philippine, Panama and also in Latin America like Mexico.
Implication is that coercive and referent powers are stressed over reward expert and legitimate powers.
Children treat parents with respect in the peoples republic of China- rock-the wests music of youthful
rebellion does not exactly fit in with Chinese culture because conflict between the generations is almost
nonexistence
2. Uncertainty avoidance
This dimension measures how far cultures socialize their members into accepting ambiguous situations and
toleration uncertainty about the future. Members of high uncertainty avoidance cultures appear anxiety prone
and devote more energy to beating the future. Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which people feel
threatened ambiguous situations and created institutions of beliefs for removing or avoiding risks and
uncertainties
High uncertainty avoidance: it tries to reduce risk and to develop system and method for dealing with
ambiguity.
o Tend to formalize organizational activities.
o Depend heavily on rules and regulations for security.
o Decisions are result of group consensus.
Low uncertainty avoidance:
o Less structuring of activities and encourage managers to take more risk
o Depend heavily on their own initiative of ingenuity in getting things done.
o Less formal in organizations activity
For example: US, Canada, Great Britain, Singapore, and Sweden
3. Individualism vs. collectivism
Individualism: the tendency of people to look after themselves and their immediate family only. Economically
advances countries: USA, Britain, Canada, High individualism
1. People are self sufficient.
2. Strong emphasis on individual initiative and achievement.
3. Autonomy and individual financial security are given high value

Collectivism: the tendency of people to belong to groups that look after each other in exchange for loyalty.
For example; Pakistan, Indonesia, Ecuador.
1. A great deal of importance on group decision making and affiliation.
2. No one wants to be a single and for special attention even for a job well done.
3. Success is collective and individual praise is embarrassing because it implies that are group number is better
than others.
4. Emphases belongingness and draw strength from group affiliation.

4. Quantity of life versus quality of life:

Quantity of life is the degree to which values such as assertiveness, the acquisition of money and material
goods, and competition prevail. Quality of life is the degree to which people value relationships, and show
sensitivity and concern for the welfare of others.
5. Long term versus short term orientation:
People in cultures with long-term orientations look to the future and value thrift and persistence. A short-term
orientation values the past and present and emphasizes respect for traditional and fulfilling social obligations.
Job satisfaction: Job satisfaction is a set of favorable and unfavorable feelings and emotions with which
employee view their work. It is a feeling of like or dislike toward something.
The effect of job satisfaction on employee performance:
managers interest in job satisfaction tends to center on its effect on employee performance. Researchers have
recognized this interest, so we find a large number of studies that have been designed to assess the impact of job
satisfaction on employee productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Lets look at the current state of our
knowledge:
Satisfaction and productivity:
Workers productivity is higher in organizations with more satisfied workers. We might not be able to say that a
happy worker is more productive, it is rather true that happy organizations are more productive.
Satisfaction and Absenteeism:
There are consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. Satisfied employees have
fewer avoidable absences..
Satisfactions and turnover:
Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger than what we found for
absenteeism. Satisfied employees are less likely to quit. Organizations take actions to retain high performers
and weed out lower performers.
How employee can express dissatisfaction:
Employee dissatisfaction can be expressed in a number of ways. For example, rather than quit, employees can
complain, be insubordinate, steal organizational property. Or shirk a part of their work responsible. They are
defined as follows:
Exit: behavior directed toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as
resigning.
Voice: actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements,
discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity.
Loyalty: passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the
organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to do the right
thing

Neglect: passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort,
and increased error rate.
Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction:
The evidence indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In service
organizations, customer retention and defection are highly dependent on how front-line employees deal with
customer. Satisfied employees are more likely to be friendly, upbeat, and responsivewhich customers are more
likely to encounter familiar faces and receive experienced service.

Dissatisfied customers can increase an employees job dissatisfaction. Employees who have regular contact
with customers report that rude, thoughtless, or unreasonable demanding customers adversely affect the
employees job satisfaction.