ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

THE NATURE AND DIMENSIONS

OF ATTITUDES
 “Attitudes”
 Persistent tendency to feel and behave in
a particular way towards some object

 Characteristics of Attitudes
 They tend to persist unless something is
done to change them.
 They can fall anywhere along a continuum
from very favorable to very unfavorable.
 They are directed toward some object
about which a person has feelings and
beliefs.
 ATTITUDE MODEL

Informational/
Cognitive
(i.e. beliefs)

Attitude Behavior

Affective
(i.e. emotions)
 Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person,
place, thing, or event-- this is often referred to as the attitude
object.
 People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object,
meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and
negative attitudes toward the item in question. Attitudes are
judgments. They develop on the ABC model (affect, behavior,
and cognition). The affective response is an emotional
response that expresses an individual's degree of preference
for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication or
typical behavioral tendency of an individual. The cognitive
response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes
an individual's beliefs about the object. Most attitudes are the
result of either direct experience or observational learning
from the environment.

 It can also be defined as,” A complex mental state involving

beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in
certain ways.”
For example, if someone says that “I like my Job”. This
statement expresses his attitude towards his Job.
 TYPES OF ATTITUDES
 Job Satisfaction
 A collection of positive and or negative feelings that
an individual holds toward his or her job.
 Job Involvement
 Identifying with the job, actively participating in it,
and considering performance important to self-
worth.
 Organizational Commitment
 Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals, and wishing to maintain membership in the
organization.
 THE NATURE AND DIMENSIONS
OF ATTITUDES

 Components of Attitudes
 COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES

 Attitudes structure can be described in

terms of three components.

 Affective component: this involves a

person’s feelings / emotions about the
attitude object. For example: “I am scared
of spiders”.
 Behavioral (or cognitive) component: the
way the attitude we have influences how
we act or behave. For example: “I will
avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
 Cognitive component: this involves a
person’s belief / knowledge about an
attitude object. For example: “I believe
spiders are dangerous”.
Attitude and behavior are two quite
different things. Attitude is a person's
inner thoughts and feelings, while
behavior is usually an outward
expression of attitude, but the two are
not always related. 
For instance, psychopaths are people
whose attitudes are composed of low
morality. However, this does not mean
that they always commit immoral acts.
Psychopaths are usually intelligent, so
they know that even though there will
be no moral consequences for them,
there will still be legal consequences to
deal with. This knowledge, in addition to
their attitude, governs their behavior. 
When a person's attitude and behavior
differ, dissonance will likely result, and a
change in attitude or behavior will be
the probable outcome.
This model is known as the ABC model of attitudes. 
The three components are usually linked. However,
there is evidence that the cognitive and affective
components of behavior do not always match with
behavior. 
They evaluative statements in an attitude are either
favorable or unfavorable. They reflect how one feel
about something.
A person can have thousands of attitudes. But OB
focuses on a limited number of job-related attitudes.
These include job satisfaction,
 job involvement (the degree to which person
identifies
with his or her job and actively participates in it)
 And organizational commitment (an indicator of
loyalty to, and, identification with the organization).
 FORMATION OF ATTITUDE
 How attitudes are formed? How do you develop your attitude? Essentially
attitudes are the outward manifestation of your inner values and beliefs.
 These develop over time. As you grow you watch the significant people
around you behaving in a particular way; you are being told to cherish
certain things over others and you learn from your teachers and peers and
come to value certain thins over other, thus forming your value system.
These in turn give rise to development of your attitudes.
DIFFERENT ATTITUDE’S OF A
PERSON
 Attitudes help predict work
behavior
 The following example might help to
illustrate it. After introducing a
particular policy, it is found from an
attitude survey, that the workers are
not too happy about it.
 During the subsequent week it is
found that the attendance of the
employees drops sharply from the
previous standard. Here
management may conclude that a
negative attitude toward new work
rules led to increased absenteeism.
 Attitudes help people to adapt
to their work environment
 An understanding of attitudes is
also important because attitudes
help the employees to get
adjusted to their work. If the
management can successfully
develop a- positive attitude
among the employees, they will
be better adjusted to their work
 FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDE
 According to Katz, attitudes serve four important functions from
the viewpoint of organizational behavior. These are as follows.
 The Adjustment Function. Attitudes often help people to adjust
to their work environment. Well-treated employees tend to
develop a positive attitude towards their job, management and
the organization in general while berated and ill treated
organizational members develop a negative attitude. In other
words, attitudes help employees adjust to their environment
and form a basis for future behavior.
 Ego-Defensive Function. Attitudes help people to retain their
dignity and self- image. When a young faculty member who is
full of fresh ideas and enthusiasm, joins the organization, the
older members might feel somewhat threatened by him. But
they tend to disapprove his creative ideas as ‘crazy’ and
‘impractical’ and dismiss him altogether.
 The Value-Expressive Function. Attitudes
provide individuals with a basis for
expressing their values. For example, a
manager who values hard and sincere
work will be more vocal against an
employee who is having a very casual
approach towards work.
 The Knowledge Function. Attitudes
provide standards and frames of
reference that allow people to
understand, and perceive the world
around him. If one has a strong negative
attitude towards the management,
whatever the management does, even
employee welfare programmes can be
perceived as something ‘bad’ and as
actually against them.
 CHANGING ATTITUDES
 Employees’  attitudes can be changed and sometimes it is in
the best interests of managements to try to do so. For
example, if employees believe that their employer does not
look after their welfare, the management should try to
change their attitude and help develop a more positive
attitude in them.

 However, the process of changing the attitude is not always

easy. There are some barriers which have to be overcome if
one strives to change somebody’s attitude. There are two
major categories of barriers that come in the way of
changing attitudes:
 There are two major categories of barriers that come in
the way of changing attitudes:
 Prior commitment when people feel a commitment
towards a particular course of action that have already
been agreed upon and thus it becomes difficult for them
to change or accept the new ways of functioning.
 Insufficient information also acts as a major barrier to
change attitudes. Sometimes people simply see any
reason to change their attitude due to unavailability of
adequate information.
 SOME OF THE POSSIBLE WAYS OF
CHANGING ATTITUDES
 Providing New Information. Sometimes
a dramatic change in attitude is possible
only by providing relevant and adequate
information to the person concerned.
Scanty and incomplete information can
be a major reason for brewing negative
feeling and attitudes.
 Use of Fear. Attitudes can be changed
through the use of fear. People might
resort to change their work habit for the
fear of fear of unpleasant consequences.
However, the degree of the arousal of
fear will have to be taken into
consideration as well.
 Resolving Discrepancies: Whenever
“people face “a dilemma or conflicting
situation they feel confused in
choosing a particular course of action.

 Like in the case where one is to choose

from” between two alternative courses
of action, it is often become difficult for
him to decide which is right for him.
Even when he chooses one over the
other, he might still feel confused. If
some one helps him in pointing out the
positive points in favor of the chosen
course of action, he person might
resolve the his dilemma.
 Influence of friends and peers A very effective way of
changing one’s attitude is through his friends and colleagues.
Their opinion and recommendation for something often
proves to be more important. If for example, they are all
praise for a particular policy introduced in the work place,
chances are high that an individual will slowly accept that
even when he had initial reservations for that.

 Co-opting. If you want to change the attitude of some body

who belongs to a different group, it is often becomes very
effective if you can include him in your own group. Like in the
case of the union leader who are all the time vehemently
against any management decision, can be the person who
takes active initiative in implementing a new policy when he
had participated in that decision making process himself.
 JOB ATTITUDES AND ACTUAL
BEHAVIOR
 The belief, attitude, intention
sequence is presumably followed
by actual behavior.

 This traditional model suggests

that behaviors (including job
performance) are largely
influenced by job attitudes. (e.g.,
absenteeism)

 Recently, this traditional model

has been questioned as being too
simple and some more
comprehensive alternatives have
been developed.
 THE THEORY OF COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE

Desire to reduce dissonance

• Importance of elements creating dissonance
• Degree of individual influence over elements
• Rewards involved in dissonance
SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY
AN APPLICATION: ATTITUDE SURVEYS
EMPLOYEE ATTITUDE SURVEY
QUESTIONNAIRE
 MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES
 Job Satisfaction
 Job Involvement
 Psychological Empowerment
 Organizational Commitment
 Affective commitment
 Continuance commitment
 Normative commitment

 Perceived Organizational Support

(POS)
 Employee Engagement
 WHAT IS JOB SATISFACTION?

 A collection of attitudes that workers

have about their jobs.
 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 work itself

 Compensation

 Career opportunities
 HISTORY OF JOB SATISFACTION

 Based in history of Job Satisfaction

 Formal research began in mid-1930’s
 1932 I/O textbooks had no mention of job
satisfaction or organizational commitment
 By 1972 over 3000 articles published specifically
exploring worker attitudes
 Why interest developed
 Methodological breakthroughs
 Survey methods
 Statistical techniques
 MEASURING JOB SATISFACTION
 Single Global Rating Method
 Only a few general questions

 Remarkably accurate

 Summation Score Method

 Identifies key elements in the job and asks
for specific feeling about them
 WHAT CAUSES JOB SATISFACTION?

 The Work Itself – the strongest correlation with overall

satisfaction
 Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level of
comfortable living

 Advancement
 Supervision
 Coworkers
 THE EFFECT OF JOB SATISFACTION ON
EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
 Satisfaction and Productivity
 Satisfied workers aren’t necessarily
more productive.
 Worker productivity is higher in
organizations with more satisfied
workers.
 Satisfaction and Absenteeism
 Satisfied employees have fewer
avoidable absences.
 Satisfaction and Turnover
 Satisfied employees are less likely to
quit.
 Organizations take actions to cultivate
high performers and to weed out lower
performers.
HOW EMPLOYEES CAN EXPRESS
DISSATISFACTION

DESTRUCTIVE TO CONSTRUCTIVE
 ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP
BEHAVIOUR (OCB)
 Voluntary, informal behaviour that
contributes to organizational
effectiveness.
 Job satisfaction is strongly related to
OCB.
 The different forms of OCB:
 Helping behaviour and offering
assistance.
 Conscientiousness to the details of
work.
 Being a good sport.
 Courtesy and cooperation.
 SUMMARY

 Attitudes have traditionally been described as a process in

which we logically calculate our feelings toward the attitude
object based on an analysis of our beliefs. Thus, beliefs
predict feelings, which predict behavioral intentions, which
predict behavior. But this traditional perspective overlooks
the role of emotions, which have an important influence on
attitudes and behavior

 Behavior sometimes influences our subsequent attitudes

through cognitive dissonance. People also have personality
traits which affect their emotions and attitudes.

 Belief + Value = Attitude > Behavior.

 A good “fit” between the values of employees and their
supervisors and organization enhances job attitudes and
behaviours.
 Job Satisfaction
 Affects many behaviors that are not directly related to
performance (e.g., absenteeism, OCBs)
 Fostering commitment is important
 Continuance commitment lower performance, while
affective commitment increases performance