1. 1 Dr. Fred Mugambi Mwirigi JKUAT Sunday, October 18, 20151

2. Attitudes Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events. They emanate from belief systems. Attitudes have the following components: 1. Cognitive Component- The opinion or belief segment of an attitude 2. Affective Component- The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude 3. Behavioural Component- An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something 2

3. Sunday, October 18, 2015 Attitudes contd.  Attitudes are complex. If you ask people their attitudes towards something like, soccer, you may get a simple response but the reasons underlying the response are probably complex.  The components of attitudes are closely related and the cognition and affective components are inseparable. E.g. if an employee didn’t get a promotion that she thought she deserved (cognition), the employee strongly dislikes her supervisor (affective), and the employee seriously looks for another job (behaviour). 3

4. Sunday, October 18, 2015 Attitudes contd.  Attitudes change as a function of experience  Attitudes form directly as a result of experience.  They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation.  Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes.  Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context.  Social norms involve society's rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate. 4

5. Sunday, October 18, 2015 The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance and its influence on behavior  Theory by Leon Festinger  Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behaviour and attitudes.  People seek consistency among their attitudes, and between their attitudes and behaviour. They seek to reduce this gap, or ‘dissonance’. Desire to reduce dissonance depends on: Importance of elements creating dissonance Degree of individual influence over elements Rewards involved in dissonance Desire to reduce dissonance depends on: Importance of elements creating dissonance Degree of individual influence over elements Rewards involved in dissonance 5

6. Cognitive Dissonance Contd.  When there is an inconsistency (cognitive dissonance) forces are initiated to return the individual to equilibrium where attitudes and behaviour are again consistent.  If the elements creating dissonance are relatively unimportant the pressure to correct the imbalance will be low.  When the elements are important dissonance can be reduced through a change in behaviour, or attitude. 6 Sunday, October 18, 2015

7. Cognitive Dissonance Contd.  The degree of influence that individuals believe that they have over the elements will impact how they react to the dissonance. If they perceive no control, they are less likely to be receptive to attitude change.  High rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce the tension inherent in the dissonance.  In an organisation the theory can help to predict the propensity to engage in attitude and behavioural change. 7 Sunday, October 18, 2015

8. Attitude Vs Behavior  Recent research has demonstrated that attitudes significantly predict future behaviour  Important attitudes reflect fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with individuals or groups that a person values.  The more specific the attitude the more specific the behaviour.  Attitudes that are easily remembered are more likely to predict behaviour. 8 Sunday, October 18, 2015

9. Contd.  Discrepancies between attitudes and behaviour are more likely to occur when social pressures to behave in certain ways hold exceptional power.  The attitude-behaviour relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which the individual has direct personal experience. 9 Sunday, October 18, 2015

10. Attitudes vs. Job Satisfaction  Job satisfaction is an individual’s general attitude toward his/her job  A high level of job satisfaction equals positive attitudes toward the job and vice versa  Attitudes have a direct effect on job satisfaction.  Negative attitudes tend to reduce job satisfaction while positive attitudes tend to raise the levels of job satisfaction 10

11. Average Job Satisfaction Levels by Facet Sunday, October 18, 201511

12. 12 Sunday, October 18, 2015 How Employees Express Dissatisfaction

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18. How Employees Express Dissatisfaction Active Passive Destructive constructive 18

19. Sunday, October 18, 2015 The Effect of Job Satisfaction on Employee Performance  Satisfaction and Productivity Satisfied workers are more productive and more productive workers are more satisfied! Worker productivity is higher in organisations with more satisfied workers.  Satisfaction and Absenteeism Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable absences. 19

20. Effect of Job Satisfaction on Employee Performance Contd.  Satisfaction and Turnover Satisfied employees are less likely to quit. Organisations take actions to retain high performers and to weed out lower performers. 20 Sunday, October 18, 2015

21. Job Satisfaction vs. Customer Satisfaction  Satisfied workers provide better customer service.  Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction because:  They are more friendly, upbeat, and responsive.  They are less likely to turnover, which helps build long-term customer relationships.  They are experienced.  Dissatisfied customers increase employee job dissatisfaction. 21

22. Job involvement  Job involvement measures the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his/her job and considers his/her perceived performance level important to self-worth.  A related concept is psychological empowerment which is the employees’ belief in the degree to which they impact their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and the perceived autonomy of their work.  High levels of job involvement and psychological empowerment are positively related to organisational citizenship and job performance.  High job involvement is found to be related to fewer absences and lower resignations rates. 22 Sunday, October 18, 2015

23. Organisational commitment  A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organisation and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation.  There are three separate dimensions to organisation commitment: 1. Affective commitment – an emotional attachment to the organisation 2. Continuance commitment – perceived economic value of remaining with the organisation 3. Normative commitment – an obligation to remain because of ethical or moral reasons  There is a positive relationship between organisational commitment and job productivity 23 Sunday, October 18, 2015

24. Measuring Employee Attitudes  The most popular method for measuring attitudes, because of its ease of implementation and speed of results, is through the use of attitude surveys.  Attitude surveys elicit responses from employees through questionnaires on how they feel about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, and the organisation.  The typical attitude survey presents the employee with a set of statements or questions with a rating scale indicating the degree of agreement. 24 Sunday, October 18, 2015

25. Attitude Surveys Contd.  An individual’s attitude score is achieved by summing up responses to the questionnaire items, the scores can be averaged for work groups, teams, departments, divisions or the organisation as a whole.  Results from attitude surveys can frequently surprise management.  A complicating factor is that attitude surveys can be viewed sceptically or suspiciously by many employees concerned about confidentiality. Using an outside body to conduct and analyse the data can help to reduce concerns.  Using attitude surveys regularly provides managers with valuable feedback on the perception of employees towards working conditions. 25 Sunday, October 18, 2015

26. Measuring Job Satisfaction  Jobs require interaction with co-workers and bosses, following organisational rules and policies, meeting performance standards, living with working conditions that are often less than ideal, and the like.  This means that an employee’s assessment of how satisfied or dissatisfied he or she is with his/her job is a complex summation of a number of discrete job elements. 26 Sunday, October 18, 2015

27. Ways of Measuring Job Satisfaction 1. The single global rating method- asking individuals to respond to one question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” 2. A summation of job facets:  It identifies key elements in a job and asks for the employee’s feelings about each one ranked on a standardised scale.  Typical factors that would be included are the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relations with co- workers. 27 Sunday, October 18, 2015

28. Conclusion  The level of employee satisfaction has a direct and cyclic relationship with the level of customer satisfaction.  If customers are dissatisfied employees tend to get even more dissatisfied.  The nature of retaliatory response elicited by employees can help a manager understand the level and nature of dissatisfaction.  Money is not the ultimate satisfier of either the employee or the customer. Sunday, October 18, 201528

29. 29 Sunday, October 18, 2015 End