Attitudes at Work
Dr Joan Harvey
Dr George Erdos
Attitudes
“The regularities of an individual’s feelings,
thoughts and predispositions to act toward some
aspect of their environment.”
Can concern almost anything e.g. world, things,
constructs and people.
Represent the “truth” as we see it
Components need not be consistent e.g. I may hate
my job but think it is socially desirable and so I do
not leave.
Salience
Components of Work Attitudes
Affective component
How a worker feels about his
or her job or organisation
Work attitudes
Cognitive component
What a worker believes to be
true about his or her job or
organisation
Behavioural component
How a worker is predisposed
to behave in his or her job or
organisation
Collections of feelings,
beliefs, & predispositions to
behave in one’s job &
organisation
Personality
The enduring ways a person has
of feeling, thinking and behaving
Work situation
Attitudes to work
Values
The work itself
Coworkers,
supervisors and
subordinates
Physical working
conditions
Working hours, pay
and job security
The collection of feelings,
beliefs and predispositions to
behave in one’s job or
organisation
Intrinsic work
values
Social influence
Coworkers
Groups
Culture
Extrinsic work
values
Personality
and work
values (most
stable)
Work attitudes
(moderately stable)
Work moods
(most changing)
Stronger relationships
Weaker relationships
Why Might Attitudes Matter at Work?
Because attitudes to work and/or employing
organisation might affect:
•
Whether a person seeks a new job
•
How co-operative they are with others at work
•
Whether they present a positive image of the
organisation to clients or customers
•
How they react to change
•
How hard they work (motivation)
•
Their psychological or physical health
Measuring Attitudes
1.
Likert scaling - summated scale
2.
Statements worded either for or against issue in
question
3.
Agreement or disagreement is indicated
4.
If the statements are responded to in the same
way in two occasions, this indicates reliability
5.
Overall attitude is the sum or mean of the item
responses after any necessary reverse scoring
has taken place (see example)
Example of Attitude Measurement
Top management in your company
Please respond to the statements below to indicate how you
see your top management:
7 = strongly agree with the statement
through to
1 = strongly disagree with the statement
1. Top management do their best for the company agree 6
2. Top management in this company disgusts me
disagree 2
3. I feel disposed to cooperate with the top management in this
company
slightly agree 5
SCORE= 17 [6 + (8-2) + 5]
Comments on measurement of
attitudes
• A 6 or 7 point Likert scale is preferable as
in last example, depending on whether a
mid-point is needed by respondents
• More extremely worded items are needed
[as well as milder ones] to ‘stretch’ the
answers across the scale for the overall
attitude measure. E.g. “Top management in this
company disgusts me” from previous example
The Theory of Planned Behaviour
(Source: Ajzen, 1991, derived from TRA)
Expected outcomes of
behaviour and value of
those outcomes to the
person
Attitude
Relative importance to
person of attitude and
subjective norm
Beliefs about how
favourably or
unfavourably other
people would react if
one performed the
behaviour and
motivation to comply
with their views
Subjective
norm
Intention
Perceived
behavioural
control
Behaviour
Factors Affecting Attitude Change
•
Credibility of persuader - expertness and
trustworthiness
•
Attractiveness of persuader
•
Sleeper effect
•
Extremity of message
•
Use of fear
•
One-sided and two-sided arguments
•
Central vs Peripheral processing
Different types of workplace attitudes:
job satisfaction
A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from
the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke,
1976). Components include:
•
pay and benefits
•
the work itself
•
co-workers
•
career opportunities
•
supervision
•
job security
•
recognition
•
working conditions
Organisational Commitment
Meyer and Allen (1997)
1.
Affective commitment - personal attachment to
organisation
2.
Continuance commitment - perception of costs
and risks associated with leaving the organisation
3.
Normative commitment - moral dimension,
obligation and responsibility to your organisation
N.B. Multiple commitments can be experienced eg
location, department etc.
More complex view of
commitment
• In addition to organizational commitment, there
is also commitment to:
– The professional organization e.g. Institute of
Chartered Accountants, the Law Society
– The Union e.g. AMICUS, UCU
– The department
– The manager
– The job
• Problems arise when these commitments
conflict with one another
•
See work by Tom Redman & colleagues on multiple aspects to commitment
Satisfaction and Commitment
Both involved in people’s decisions to stay in or
leave jobs and organisations.
Both have implications for people’s general well
being.
Both associated with motivation….
Are connected with people’s performance in their
job, but only to 25% shared variance.
Anyway, why should people feel committed to
their employer?
Organizational trust
• A complex set of attitudes, comprising
– Trust in people [trust in management often
different to that in peers]
– Trust in terms of security [e.g. in computer
systems]
– Trust in terms of organizational justice and
fairness [distributive, procedural]
Some other issues
• Low trust and low commitment usually associated
with stress, labour turnover, absenteeism
• Cause and effect (attributions) are also reflected in
attitudes
• Reverse causality [Clegg, 1983] shows how
attitudes might both predict behaviour and be
changed afterwards to reflect it
• Specific attitudes more related to specific
behaviours than are general attitudes [Foxall, 1998]
Exercise in attitude change:
safety climate and safety culture are known to
relate to workplace safety performance
• You are asked to set an agenda to improve
safety culture in an organization, e.g. a food
processing plant
• What attitude and other components do you
think make up safety culture?
• How would you diagnose what the problem
areas are?
• What do you propose to do to change attitudes
to make them more positive?
• Would you propose to try to change behaviour
as well?
Thank you for listening
• Dr Joan Harvey
• Dr George Erdos
• Newcastle University
• Joan.Harvey@ncl.ac.uk