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Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction 79 Page CHAPTER 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction (ppt 3-1) Click on title when connected to the Internet to access teaching notes LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, students should be able to (ppt 3-2): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Contrast the three components of an attitude. Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior. Compare and contrast the major job attitudes. Define job satisfaction and show how it can be measured. Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction. Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction. INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES Text Exercises An Ethical Choice: Do Employers Owe Workers More Satisfying Jobs? (p. 108, IM p. 92) GlOBalizattion: Culture and Work-Life Balance (p. 110, IM p. 93) Myth or Science?: “Favorable Job Attitudes Make Organizations More Profitable” (p. 117, IM p. 95) Point/Counterpoint: Employer-Employee Loyalty Is an Outdated Concept (p. 121, IM p. 96) Questions for Review (p. 122, IM p. 98) Experiential Exercise: What Factors Are Most Important to Your Job Satisfaction? (p. 123, IM p. 101) Ethical Dilemma: Bounty Hunters (p. 123, IM p. 104) Text Cases Case Incident 1: Long Hours, Hundreds of E-Mails, and No Sleep: Does This Sound Like a Satisfying Job? (p. 124, IM p. 105) Case Incident 2: Crafting a Better Job (p. 125, IM p. 108) Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Instructor’s Choice - Discovering Your Own VALS (IM p. 109) This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student's textbook. Instructor's Choice reinforces the text's emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor's Choice activities are centered around debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student experiences. Some can be used in-class in their entirety, while others require some additional work on the student's part. The course instructor may choose to use these at anytime throughout the class—some may be more effective as icebreakers, while some may be used to pull together various concepts covered in the chapter. WEB EXERCISES (IM p. 111) At the end of each chapter of this instructor’s manual, you will find suggested exercises and ideas for researching the WWW on OB topics. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-ofclass activity or as lab activities with your class. SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organizational effectiveness. Some take-away lessons from the study of attitudes include the following: Satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors. They also perform better on the job. Given that managers want to keep resignations and absences down— especially among their most productive employees—they’ll want to do things that generate positive job attitudes. Managers will also want to measure job attitudes effectively so they can tell how employees are reacting to their work. As one review put it, “A sound measurement of overall job attitude is one of the most useful pieces of information an organization can have about its employees.” The most important thing managers can do to raise employee satisfaction is focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as making the work challenging and interesting. Although paying employees poorly will likely not attract high-quality employees to the organization or keep high performers, managers should 80 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page realize that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work environment. The chapter opens by profiling Tannourine Hospital in Lebanon. The CEO, Dr. Walid Harb uses a micromanagement style where every department has delegated responsibilities and authority. He also encouraged open communication and employee feedback. The result is a highly satisfied productive workforce with considerable loyalty to Dr. Harb. BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Attitudes (ppt 3-3) A. Introduction 1. Attitudes are evaluative statements that are either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects, people, or events. 2. Attitudes are not the same as values, but the two are interrelated. B. What Are the Main Components of Attitudes? 1. Three components of an attitude (Exhibit 3-1) a. Cognitive component b. Affective component c. Behavioral component C. Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes? (ppt 3-4) 1. Introduction a. The attitudes people hold determine what they do. b. Festinger proposed that cases of attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance, any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes. c. Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior. 2. Moderating Variables (ppt 3-5) a. Importance of the attitude b. Its correspondence to behavior c. Its accessibility d. The presence of social pressure e. Whether or not a person has had direct experience with the behavior f. The attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which we have direct personal experience (ppt 3-5) D. What Are the Major Job Attitudes? (ppt 3-6) 1. Introduction a. OB focuses our attention on a very limited number of job-related attitudes. Most of the research in OB has been concerned with three attitudes: job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. 2. Job Satisfaction 81 Chapter 3 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page a. Definition: refers to a collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job. b. A high level of job satisfaction equals positive attitudes toward the job and vice versa. Job Involvement a. A workable definition: the measure of the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his/her job and considers his/her perceived performance level important to self-worth. Logical empowerment a. Employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence i. their work environment, ii. their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and iii. their perceived autonomy. Organizational Commitment (ppt 3-7) a. Definition: A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals. b. A positive relationship appears to exist between organizational commitment and job productivity, but it is a modest one. c. Theoretical models propose that employees who are committed will be less likely to engage in work withdrawal even if they are dissatisfied, because they have a sense of organizational loyalty. Perceived organizational support (POS) a. Degree to which employees believe the organization values their contribution and cares about their well being. b. Research shows that people perceive their organization as supportive when rewards are deemed fair, when employees have a voice in decisions, and when they see their supervisors as supportive. c. Employees with strong POS perceptions have been found more likely to have higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors, lower levels of tardiness, and better customer service. Employee engagement—individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work she does Are These Job Attitudes Really All That Distinct? (ppt 3-9) a. Attitudes are highly related. Example: If you know someone’s affective commitment, you basically know their perceived organizational support. b. The redundancy is inefficient and confusing. II. Job Satisfaction A. Measuring Job Satisfaction 1. The definition of job satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics—is broad. 2. Two approaches for measuring Job Satisfaction are popular: a. The single global rating b. The summation of job facets B. How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs? 1. Most people are satisfied with their jobs in the developed countries surveyed. 82 Chapter 3 C. D. E. F. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 2. Research shows that over the past 30 years, the majority of U.S. workers have been satisfied with their jobs. 3. As shown Exhibit 3-2 people have typically been more satisfied with their jobs overall, with the work itself, and with their supervisors and co-workers than they have been with their pay and with promotion opportunities. 4. Workers do seem to be less satisfied with their pay and promotion. opportunities. What Causes Job Satisfaction? (Exhibit 3-3) 1. Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy most employees. 2. There is also a strong correspondence between how well people enjoy the social context of their workplace and how satisfied they are overall. 3. Money and Job Satisfaction a. For people who are poor or who live in poor countries, pay does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness. b. But once an individual reaches a level of comfortable living (in the United States, that occurs at about $40,000 a year, depending on the region and family size), the relationship between pay and job satisfaction virtually disappears. c. Exhibit 3-4 shows the relationship between the average pay for a job and the average level of job satisfaction. 4. Personality also plays a role in Job Satisfaction. a. Research has shown that people who have positive core self-evaluations are more satisfied with their jobs than those with negative core selfevaluations. b. Those with negative core self-evaluations set less ambitious goals and are more likely to give up when confronting difficulties. The Impact of Dissatisfied and Satisfied Employees on the Workplace 1. Introduction a. There are a number of ways employees can express dissatisfaction: (Exhibit 3-5) b. Exit: Behavior directed toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning. c. Voice: Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity. d. 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.” e. Neglect: Passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate. Satisfaction and job performance: 1. Happy workers are not necessarily productive workers—the evidence suggests that productivity is likely to lead to satisfaction. Job Satisfaction and OCB 83 Chapter 3 G. H. I. J. K. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 1. It seems logical to assume job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). 2. Fairness perceptions help explain the relationship. 3. Finally, research shows that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely to engage in OCBs. Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction 1. Evidence indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism 1. We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. The more satisfied you are, the less likely you are to miss work. Job Satisfaction and Turnover 1. Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance 1. Job dissatisfaction predicts unionization, stealing, undue socializing, and tardiness. 2. If employees don’t like their work environment, they will respond somehow. Managers Often “Don’t Get It” 1. Given the evidence we’ve just reviewed, it should come as no surprise that job satisfaction can affect the bottom line. 2. Regular surveys can reduce gaps between what managers think employees feel and what they really feel. III. Summary and Implications for Managers A. Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. B. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organizational effectiveness. C. Some take-away lessons from the study of attitudes include the following: 1. Satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors. They also perform better on the job. Given that managers want to keep resignations and absences down—especially among their most productive employees—they’ll want to do things that generate positive job attitudes. 2. Managers will also want to measure job attitudes effectively so they can tell how employees are reacting to their work. As one review put it, “A sound measurement of overall job attitude is one of the most useful pieces of information an organization can have about its employees.” 3. The most important thing managers can do to raise employee satisfaction is focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as making the work challenging and interesting. 84 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 4. Although paying employees poorly will likely not attract high-quality employees to the organization or keep high performers, managers should realize that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work environment. EXPANDED CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Attitudes A. Introduction 1. Attitudes are evaluative statements that are either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects, people, or events. 2. Attitudes are not the same as values, but the two are interrelated. B. What Are the Main Components of Attitudes? 1. Three components of an attitude (Exhibit 3-1) a. Cognitive component i. The employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognitive) b. Affective component i. The employee strongly dislikes his supervisor (affective) c. Behavioral component i. The employee is looking for another job (behavioral) ii. In organizations, attitudes are important because of the behavioral component C. Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes? 1. Introduction a. The attitudes people hold determine what they do. b. Festinger proposed that cases of attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance, any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes. c. Research has generally concluded that people seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior. d. Individuals seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and align their attitudes and behavior so they appear rational and consistent. e. Festinger proposed that the desire to reduce dissonance depends on moderating factors, including the importance of the elements creating it and the degree of influence we believe we have over them. Individuals will be more motivated to reduce dissonance when the attitudes or behavior are important or when they believe the dissonance is due to something they can control. f. A third factor is the rewards of dissonance; high rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce the tension inherent in the dissonance. D. Moderating Variables 1. Importance of the attitude a. Its correspondence to behavior b. Its accessibility c. The presence of social pressure 85 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page d. Whether or not a person has had direct experience with the behavior e. The attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which we have direct personal experience E. What Are the Major Job Attitudes? 1. Introduction a. OB focuses our attention on a very limited number of job-related attitudes. Most of the research in OB has been concerned with three attitudes: job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. 2. Job Satisfaction a. Definition: refers to a collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job. b. A high level of job satisfaction equals positive attitudes toward the job and vice versa. c. Employee attitudes and job satisfaction are frequently used interchangeably. d. Often when people speak of “employee attitudes” they mean “employee job satisfaction.” 3. Job Involvement a. A workable definition: the measure of the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his/her job and considers his/her perceived performance level important to self-worth. b. High levels of job involvement are thought to result in fewer absences and lower resignation rates. c. Job involvement more consistently predicts turnover than absenteeism. d. Psychological empowerment—employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they impact their work. 4. Logical empowerment a. Employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence i. their work environment, ii. their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and iii. their perceived autonomy b. One study of nursing managers in Singapore found that good leaders empower their employees by involving them in decisions, making them feel their work is important, and giving them discretion to “do their own thing.” 5. Organizational Commitment a. Definition: A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals. b. A positive relationship appears to exist between organizational commitment and job productivity, but it is a modest one. c. As with job involvement, the research evidence demonstrates negative relationships between organizational commitment and both absenteeism and turnover. d. Theoretical models propose that employees who are committed will be less likely to engage in work withdrawal even if they are dissatisfied, because they have a sense of organizational loyalty. 86 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page i. On the other hand, employees who are not committed, who feel less loyal to the organization, will tend to show lower levels of attendance at work across the board. ii. Research confirms this theoretical proposition. iii. It does appear that even if employees are not currently happy with their work, they are willing to make sacrifices for the organization if they are committed enough. 6. Perceived organizational support (POS) a. The degree to which employees believe the organization values their contribution and cares about their well being. b. Research shows that people perceive their organization as supportive i. when rewards are deemed fair, ii. when employees have a voice in decisions, and iii. when they see their supervisors as supportive. c. Employees with strong POS perceptions have been found more likely to have i. higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors, ii. lower levels of tardiness, and iii. better customer service. d. Though little cross-cultural research has been done, one study found POS predicted only the job performance and citizenship behaviors of untraditional or low power-distance Chinese employees—in short, those more likely to think of work as an exchange rather than a moral obligation. 7. Employee engagement—individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work she does a. Highly engaged employees have a passion for their work and feel a deep connection to their company b. Disengaged employees have essentially checked out—putting time but not energy or attention into their work c. Engagement becomes a real concern for most organizations because surveys indicate that few employees—between 17 percent and 29 percent—are highly engaged by their work d. Engagement is a very general concept, perhaps broad enough to capture the intersection of the other variables we’ve discussed. In other words, it may be what these attitudes have in common. 8. Are These Job Attitudes Really All That Distinct? a. Attitudes are highly related. Example: If you know someone’s affective commitment, you basically know his or her perceived organizational support. b. The redundancy is inefficient and confusing. II. Job Satisfaction A. Measuring Job Satisfaction 1. Our definition of job satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics—is clearly broad. 87 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 2. Jobs require interacting with co-workers and bosses, following organizational rules and policies, meeting performance standards, living with less than ideal working conditions, and the like. 3. Two approaches for measuring Job Satisfaction are popular: 4. The single global rating is a response to one question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” Respondents circle a number between 1 and 5 on a scale from “highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.” 5. The second method, the summation of job facets, is more sophisticated. It identifies key elements in a job such as the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relations with coworkers. B. How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs? 1. Most people are satisfied with their jobs in the developed countries surveyed. 2. Research shows that over the past 30 years, the majority of U.S. workers have been satisfied with their jobs. 3. As shown in Exhibit 3-2, people have typically been more satisfied with their jobs overall, with the work itself, and with their supervisors and co-workers than they have been with their pay and with promotion opportunities. 4. Workers do seem to be less satisfied with their pay and promotion opportunities. C. What Causes Job Satisfaction? (Exhibit 3-3) 1. Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy most employees. 2. There is also a strong correspondence between how well people enjoy the social context of their workplace and how satisfied they are overall. a. Interdependence, feedback, social support, and interaction with coworkers outside the workplace are strongly related to job satisfaction even after accounting for characteristics of the work itself. 3. Money and Job Satisfaction a. For people who are poor or who live in poor countries, pay does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness. b. But once an individual reaches a level of comfortable living (in the United States, that occurs at about $40,000 a year, depending on the region and family size), the relationship between pay and job satisfaction virtually disappears. c. Exhibit 3-4 shows the relationship between the average pay for a job and the average level of job satisfaction. d. Money does motivate people, as we will discover in Chapter 6. i. But what motivates us is not necessarily the same as what makes us happy. ii. Maybe your goal isn’t to be happy. But if it is, money’s probably not going to do much to get you there. 4. Personality also plays a role in Job Satisfaction. a. Research has shown that people who have positive core self-evaluations who believe in their inner worth and basic competence—are more satisfied with their jobs than those with negative core self-evaluations. 88 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page b. Not only do they see their work as more fulfilling and challenging, they are more likely to gravitate toward challenging jobs in the first place. c. Those with negative core self-evaluations set less ambitious goals and are more likely to give up when confronting difficulties. D. The Impact of Dissatisfied and Satisfied Employees on the Workplace 1. Introduction a. There are a number of ways employees can express dissatisfaction: (Exhibit 3-5) b. Exit: Behavior directed toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning. c. Voice: Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity. d. 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.” e. Neglect: Passively allowing conditions to worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate. f. Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables— productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. g. Voice and loyalty are constructive behaviors allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions. It helps us to understand situations, such as those sometimes found among unionized workers, where low job satisfaction is coupled with low turnover. E. Satisfaction and job performance: 1. Happy workers are not necessarily productive workers—the evidence suggests that productivity is likely to lead to satisfaction. 2. At the organization level, there is renewed support for the original satisfaction-performance relationship. It seems organizations with more satisfied workers as a whole are more productive organizations. F. Job Satisfaction and OCB 1. It seems logical to assume job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). a. Satisfied employees would seem more likely to talk positively about the organization, help others, and go beyond the normal expectations in their job, perhaps because they want to reciprocate their positive experiences. b. Evidence suggests job satisfaction is moderately correlated with OCBs; people who are more satisfied with their jobs are more likely to engage in OCBs. 2. Fairness perceptions help explain the relationship. a. Those who believe their co-workers support them are more likely to engage in helpful behaviors, whereas those who have antagonistic relationships with co-workers are less likely to do so. b. Individuals with certain personality traits are also more satisfied with their work, which in turns leads them to engage in more OCBs. 89 Chapter 3 G. H. I. J. K. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 3. Finally, research shows that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely to engage in OCBs Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction 1. Evidence indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 2. Some firms encourage employees to “create fun and a little weirdness” and they give them unusual discretion in making customers satisfied. 3. One report suggests that low employee morale was a major factor undermining passenger satisfaction. Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism 1. We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. The more satisfied you are, the less likely you are to miss work. 2. It makes sense that dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, but other factors have an impact on the relationship and reduce the correlation coefficient. For example, you might be a satisfied worker, yet still take a “mental health day” to head for the beach now and again. Job Satisfaction and Turnover 1. Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. 2. The satisfaction–turnover relationship also is affected by alternative job prospects. a. If an employee is presented with an unsolicited job offer, job dissatisfaction is less predictive of turnover because the employee is more likely leaving in response to “pull” (the lure of the other job) than “push” (the unattractiveness of the current job). b. Job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover when employment opportunities are plentiful because employees perceive it is easy to move. 3. When employees have high “human capital” (high education, high ability), job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover because they have, or perceive they have, many available alternatives. Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance 1. Job dissatisfaction predicts unionization, stealing, undue socializing, and tardiness. a. Researchers argue these behaviors are indicators of a broader syndrome called deviant behavior in the workplace (or counterproductive behavior or employee withdrawal) 2. If employees don’t like their work environment, they will respond somehow. a. It’s hard to predict exactly how they will respond b. To effectively control the undesirable consequences of job dissatisfaction, employers should attack the source of the problem—the dissatisfaction— rather than try to control the different responses. Managers Often “Don’t Get It” 1. Given the evidence we’ve just reviewed, it should come as no surprise that job satisfaction can affect the bottom line. 90 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 2. Stock prices of companies in the high morale group grew 19.4 percent, compared with 10 percent for the medium or low morale group. 3. Regular surveys can reduce gaps between what managers think employees feel and what they really feel. III. Summary and Implications for Managers A. Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. B. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organizational effectiveness. C. Some take-away lessons from the study of attitudes include the following: 1. Satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors. They also perform better on the job. Given that managers want to keep resignations and absences down—especially among their most productive employees—they’ll want to do things that generate positive job attitudes. 2. Managers will also want to measure job attitudes effectively so they can tell how employees are reacting to their work. As one review put it, “A sound measurement of overall job attitude is one of the most useful pieces of information an organization can have about its employees.” 3. The most important thing managers can do to raise employee satisfaction is focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as making the work challenging and interesting. 4. Although paying employees poorly will likely not attract high-quality employees to the organization or keep high performers, managers should realize that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work environment. An Ethical Choice Do Employers Owe Workers More Satisfying Jobs? This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior, Describe the components of human resource practices; and AACSB Learning Goal: Ethical understanding and reasoning abilities Research by the Conference Board suggests that job satisfaction for U.S. employees is at a 23-year low. This appears to be occurring in the midst of a dramatic growth in information technology that was supposed to make work easier for employees. What is going on here? Are employers failing to consider an ethical responsibility to employees by providing a satisfying, fulfilling experience at work? 91 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page When Professor James Heskett of Harvard posted information about these low job satisfaction rates on his blog, respondents provided a variety of different explanations for why U.S. workers are less satisfied than they were in the past. They included economic pressures, instability in the business environment, and increased competition to get the best jobs. Others believe businesses have become so focused on stock prices and profitability that the personal relationship that used to exist between employers and employees has been lost. Still others proposed that in a poor economic environment, employees who wanted to switch to a new job aren’t always able to find alternatives, leaving them “hostages” to a dissatisfying work situation. Whatever the explanation, there is cause for concern. Survey data from Towers Watson’s global workforce study of 20,000 employees in 22 markets around the world found that employees are especially concerned about job security and feel they are entirely responsible for ensuring their long-term career prospects work out. In the current economic environment, it seems that in employers’ minds, employee well-being and security have taken a back seat to coping with workplace realities. What can managers do to ensure they are making ethical decisions about protecting the quality of the workplace in their organizations? As we have shown, managers can enact a variety of concrete steps—including improving working conditions and providing a positive social environment—that will make work more enjoyable for employees. Employers may also want to think about whether their efforts to achieve efficiency and productivity are creating a work environment that is not very satisfying for employees. Source: Based on J. Heskett, “Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied with Their Jobs?” Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, April 2, 2010, hbswk.hbs.edu; Towers Watson, 2010 Global Workforce Study, New York: Author Class Exercise Form groups of three to five students. Have each group discuss whether or not anyone has observed similar situations develop in a work situation or in school. Evaluate how students indicate such situations manifested themselves and how they were treated in the social setting. Did these situations result in better or poorer work performance? Did they make the environment a difficult place to be or improve it? Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. 92 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page GlOBalization Culture and Work-Life Balance This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior, Dynamics of the global economy; and AACSB Learning Goal: Dynamics of the global economy The increased time pressures of the always-connected workplace are eroding the boundary between work life and personal life, and many individuals in postindustrial economies struggle to balance the two. Is this striving for work-life balance unique to the North American and European context, or is it a global phenomenon? One possible reason for variations in work-life balance across countries is differences in the structure and functioning of the family. Some research suggests that countries with stronger differences in expectations for men and women have different levels and types of work-life conflict. Other research suggests that work-life balance will be different in an individualistic country like the United States than in a country that is more collectivist in its orientation. In individualist countries, employers might expect more sacrifice from their employees in terms of their family lives, whereas collectivist nations where family has a higher priority will have fewer work-life balance issues. Conversely, collectivists’ higher value on family may mean they feel more conflicted if there are competing demands from the workplace and home. There are other reasons to suspect that research based on the U.S. context will not generalize to other countries. Data from a study by Harvard and McGill University researchers found that work-life balance policies like paid maternity leave, paternity leave, and paid time off in the United States are far less generous than in other wealthy nations. The study’s lead author, Jody Heymann, notes, “More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of.” The research interest in work-life balance may at least partially be a reflection of an unusually strong conflict between work and family life in the United States. At the same time, many of the same issues that contribute to work-life imbalance are present in other countries. Globally, the rise of the dual-earner couple has meant that both partners now have family responsibilities that must be met. Always-connected technology that blurs the line between personal and work time have become standard for managers in every part of the world. The institution of “siesta,” or a midday break, used to be much more common in Hispanic cultures than it is today as the globalized workplace puts greater demands on workers. Concerns about overwork have also become very prevalent in the rapidly growing economic sphere of East Asia. The Japanese even have a term, “karoshi,” referring to death from overwork. Research to date does suggest that work-life concerns are present in other cultures. For example, most studies find that feelings of conflict between work and personal life are related to lower levels of satisfaction and higher levels of psychological strain. The magnitude of these relationships varies across countries, but it appears that 93 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page concerns about work interfering with family are present around the world. There is also evidence that translated U.S. surveys about work-life conflicts are equally good measures of work-life conflicts in Europe and East Asia. Even with the growth of international research, most studies to date have been designed and conducted entirely within the United States, and many others have been conducted in cultures with marked similarities to the United States, like Canada and Great Britain. As the number of international studies continues to increase, we will develop a better understanding of how different cultures relate to work-life challenges. Source: Based on G. N. Powell, A. M. Francesco, and Y. Ling, “Toward Culture-Sensitive Theories of the Work-Family Interface,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 30, (2009), pp. 597-616; Anonymous, “Survey: U.S. Workplace Not Family-Oriented.” MSNBC.com, May 22, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16907584/; and J. Lu, O. Siu, P. E. Spector, and K. Shi, “Antecedents and Outcomes of a Fourfold Taxonomy of Work-Family Balance in Chinese Employed Parents,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 14, (2009), pp. 182-192. Class Exercise 1. Divide students into groups of three to five each. 2. Ask each group to prepare a short white paper to define how positive work-life policies and programs contribute to job satisfaction. 3. Would the group try to install work-life approaches from international cultures into U.S. companies? 4. Have the groups present their positions to the class. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. Myth or Science? Favorable Job Attitudes Make Organizations More Profitable This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. This statement appears to be true. A recent study of 2,178 business units suggested that job attitudes measured at one point in time predicted organizational financial performance roughly six months later. 94 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page In the study, job attitudes were measured through employees’ responses to 12 questions (such as, “At work, my opinions seem to count”) and financial performance was measured in terms of revenue and profit margin. Why does employee job satisfaction appear to pay off? The authors of this study uncovered two explanations: Satisfied employees are less likely to quit, and they engender stronger customer loyalty. Low turnover and high customer loyalty both helped make organizations more profitable. This study also found some evidence for what might be called a virtuous cycle: Having satisfied employees tends to improve subsequent financial performance, which tends to improve later employee satisfaction even further. No organization can be all things to all employees, but this study does suggest that attention to improving employee attitudes is well rewarded. The authors of this study conclude, “Improving employee work perceptions can improve business competitiveness while positively impacting the well-being of employees.” Source: J. K. Harter, F. L. Schmidt, J. W. Asplund, E. A. Killham, and S.Agrawal, “Causal Impact of Employee Work Perceptions on the Bottom Line of Organizations,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5, No. 4 (2010), pp. 378-389. Class Exercise 1. Brainstorm with students about situations where they knew workers/employees were unhappy with the company or their jobs, but still did a reasonably good job. Perhaps have them share insights into their own feelings about their school, or a particular class they disliked but still tried very hard. 2. Discuss why someone who is unhappy with his/her job might work hard at it and do good work. 3. Why would someone who is happy with his/her job not perform at a higher level than the disgruntled worker? 4. Students should come to realize that most effort comes from internal drive, not external motivation. As a result, a highly internally motivated individual might perform well in any circumstance whereas his/her organizational environment would not positively affect a non-internally motivated individual. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. 95 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Point/CounterPoint Employer-Employee Loyalty Is an Outdated Concept This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. Point The word loyalty is so outdated it is practically laughable. Long gone are the days when an employer would keep an employee for life, as are the days when an employee would work for a single company for his or her entire career. Workplace guru Linda Gratton says, “Loyalty is dead – killed off through shortening contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers. Faced with what could be 50 years of work, who honestly wants to spend that much time with one company? Serial monogamy is the order of the day.” Right or wrong, the commitment on each side of the equation is weak. Take the example of Renault. It ended the 31-year career of employee Michel Balthazard (and two others) on charges of espionage. The problem? The charges were proved false. When the falseness of the charges became public, Renault halfheartedly offered the employees their jobs back and a lame apology: “Renault thanks them for the quality of their work at the group and wishes them every success in the future.” As for employee’s loyalty to their employers, that too is worth little nowadays. One manager with Deloitte says the current employee attitude is, “I’m leaving, I had a great experience, and I’m taking that with me.” Employers tend to cut commitments to an employee, and reduce his or her benefits, the minute they perceive they can do so. Employees tend to jump at the best available job offer as soon as they see it. The sooner we see the employment experience for what it is (mostly transactional, mostly short- to medium-term), the better off we’ll be. The workplace is no place for fantasies. Counterpoint There are employers and employees who show little regard for each other. That each side can be uncaring or cavalier is hardly a revelation. No doubt such cynical attitudes are as old as the employment relationship itself. But is that the norm? And is it desirable? The answer to both these questions is no. Says management guru Tom Peters, “Bottom line: loyalty matters. A lot. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.” University of Michigan’s Dave Ulrich says, “Leaders who encourage loyalty want employees who are not only committed to and engaged in their work but who also find meaning from it.” It is true that the employer – employee relationship has changed. For example, (largely) gone are the days when employers provide guaranteed payout pensions to which employees contribute nothing. But is that such a bad thing? There is a big difference between asking employees to contribute to their pension plans and abandoning plans 96 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page altogether (or firing without cause). Moreover, it’s not that loyalty is dead, but rather that employers are loyal to a different kind of employee. Gone are the days when an employer would refuse to fire a longtenured but incompetent employee. But is that the kind of loyalty most employees expect today anyway? Companies are loyal to employees who do their jobs well, and that too is as it should be. In short, employees still expect certain standards of decency and loyalty from their employers, and employers want engaged, committed employees in return. That is a good thing—and not so different from yesterday. Says workplace psychologist Binna Kandola, “Workplaces may have changed but loyalty is not dead – the bonds between people are too strong.” Source: P. Korkki, “The Shifting Definition of Worker Loyalty,” New York Times (April 24, 2011), p. BU8; Is Workplace Loyalty an Outmoded Concept?” Financial Times (March 8, 2011), http://www.ft.com/; O. Gough and S. Arkani, “The Impact of the Shifting Pensions Landscape on the Psychological Contract,” Personnel Review 40, No. 2 (2011), pp. 173-184. Class Exercise Do this exercise before having the students read Point/Counterpoint. 1. Have students think about two to three jobs they have had, outside of family chores. [Working for a family business is okay.] 2. Ask them to list the jobs at the top of the sheet of paper. 3. Next have them list what they really liked about the jobs and what they disliked about the jobs. 4. Ask five-to-ten volunteers to write their job titles on the board and list 3–5 things they really like/disliked about each job. 5. With the class, look for commonalties across jobs and consolidate them into a list of things people like and do not like about work. 6. Have students then discuss what managers or supervisors could do to increase the likes and decrease the dislikes. 7. Ask if these changes would cause them or others to work harder. Have them explain why it would or would not. 8. Lead the students to draw conclusions about how much their supervisors or managers control things that would increase their like or dislike, motivation or demotivation for the job. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. 97 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Questions for Review 1. What are the main components of attitudes? Are these components related or unrelated? Answer: Cognitive component – the opinion or belief of an attitude. Affective component – the emotional or felling segment of an attitude. Behavioral component – an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something. They are closely related, particularly cognition and affect. As a manager, you need to understand how attitudes are formed and the relationship to actual job behavior. (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 2. Does behavior always follow from attitudes? Why or why not? Discuss the factors that affect whether behavior follows from attitudes. Answer: No, sometimes the reverse is true according to Leon Festinger. Cognitive Dissonance: is any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes. Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or dissonance, to reach stability and consistency. Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes, modifying the behaviors, or through rationalization. The desire to reduce dissonance depends on: a. Importance of elements b. Degree of individual influence c. Rewards involved in dissonance (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 3. What are the major job attitudes? In what ways are these attitudes alike? What is unique about each? Answer: Job Satisfaction - A positive feeling about the job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. Job Involvement - Degree of psychological identification with the job where perceived performance is important to self-worth. Psychological Empowerment is another closely related concept that is the belief in the degree of influence over the job, competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy. Organizational Commitment - Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, while wishing to maintain membership in the organization. Organizational commitment has three dimensions: 98 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 1. Affective – emotional attachment to organization 2. Continuance Commitment – economic value of staying 3. Normative – moral or ethical obligations Organizational commitment has some relation to performance, especially for new employees. It is less important now than in past – now perhaps there is more of an occupational commitment, or a loyalty to a profession rather than a given employer. There is a positive relationship between organizational commitment and job productivity, however, modest. Evidence suggests that these attitudes are highly-related. Some employees though, seem to be predisposed to be positive or negative about many things. Additional job attitudes include improved organizational support and employee engagement that are work-related attitudes that also need to be understood by managers. Overall, there is some distinction, but a lot of overlap. (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 4. How do we measure job satisfaction? Answer: Job satisfaction is a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. There are two widely used approaches to measure job satisfaction. Single global rating (one question/one answer) that is considered the best and summation score (many questions/one average) that is considered okay. (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 5. What causes job satisfaction? For most people, is pay or the work itself more important? Answer: Pay and personality are the two main factors that seem to influence job satisfaction. Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point. After about $40,000 a year (in the U. S.), there is no relationship between amount of pay and job satisfaction. Money may bring happiness, but not necessarily job satisfaction. Personality can influence job satisfaction. Negative people are usually not satisfied with their jobs. Overall, those with positive core self-evaluation are more satisfied with their jobs. (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 6. What outcomes does job satisfaction influence? What implications does this have for management? Answer: Job satisfaction influences the following OB issues Satisfaction and Job Performance Job Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction 99 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism Job Satisfaction and Turnover Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance Implications for management include: Satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors. They also perform better on the job. Given that managers want to keep resignations and absences down—especially among their most productive employees—they’ll want to do things that generate positive job attitudes. Managers will also want to measure job attitudes effectively so they can tell how employees are reacting to their work. As one review put it, “A sound measurement of overall job attitude is one of the most useful pieces of information an organization can have about its employees.” The most important thing managers can do to raise employee satisfaction is focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as making the work challenging and interesting. Although paying employees poorly will likely not attract high-quality employees to the organization or keep high performers, managers should realize that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work environment. There are a number of ways managers can detect dissatisfaction. They include: (Exhibit 3-5) 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. Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables— productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Voice and loyalty are constructive behaviors allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions. It helps us to understand situations, such as those sometimes found among unionized workers, where low job satisfaction is coupled with low turnover. (This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes, Identify four employee responses toe dissatisfaction; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills.) 100 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 101 Experiential Exercise What Factors Are Most Important to Your Job Satisfaction? This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. Most of us probably want a job we think will satisfy us. But because no job is perfect, we often have to trade off job attributes. One job may pay well but provide limited opportunities for advancement or skill development. Another may offer work we enjoy but have poor benefits. The following is a list of 21 job factors or attributes. Autonomy and independence Benefits Career advancement opportunities Career development opportunities Compensation/pay Communication between employees and management Contribution of work to organization’s business goals Feeling safe in the work environment Flexibility to balance life and work issues Job security Job-specific training Management recognition of employee job performance Meaningfulness of job Networking Opportunities to use skills/abilities Organization’s commitment to professional development Overall corporate culture Relationship with coworkers Relationship with immediate supervisor The work itself The variety of work On a sheet of paper, rank-order these job factors from top to bottom, so that number 1 is the job factor you think is most important to your job satisfaction, number 2 is the second most important factor to your job satisfaction, and so on. Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Now gather in teams of three or four people and try the following: 1. Appoint a spokesperson who will take notes and report the answers to the following questions, on behalf of your group, back to the class. 2. Averaging across all members in your group, generate a list of the top five job factors. 3. Did most people in your group seem to value the same job factors? Why or why not? 4. Your instructor will provide you with the results of a study of a random sample of 600 employees conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). How do your group’s rankings compare to the SHRM results? When employees were asked how important the following factors were to their job satisfaction, the figure below represents the percentage who listed the factor as “very important” (as opposed to “important”, “neither important nor unimportant”, “unimportant”, or “very unimportant”). The chapter says that pay doesn’t correlate all that well with job satisfaction, but in the SHRM survey, people say it is relatively important. Can your group suggest a reason for the apparent discrepancy? Now examine your own list again. Does your list agree with the group list? Does your list agree with the SHRM study? 102 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Source: Esen, SHRM Job Satisfaction Series: 2005 Job Satisfaction (Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management, 2005). Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. 103 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Ethical Dilemma Bounty Hunters This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes, Identify four employee responses toe dissatisfaction; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Ethical understanding and reasoning abilities, Reflective thinking skills. His SUV carefully obscured behind a row of trees, Rick Raymond, private investigator, was on another case. This case was not to catch the unfaithful spouse or petty criminal in action. Instead Raymond was tracking an employee at the request of an employer, to determine whether an Orlando repairman was sick as he claimed today and had several times recently. As we have seen, absenteeism is a huge problem for organizations that has left them desperate for solutions. One solution is to investigate. In the typical routine, when an employee calls in sick, the employer asks for the reason. If the reason is illness, and it has been illness an abnormal number of times in the past, the employer hires a P.I. to follow the employee and photograph or videotape his or her activity outside the house. Private investigators also are used to ascertain whether individuals filing injury claims (and drawing worker’s compensation benefits) are in fact injured. It may surprise you to learn that a recent court decision indicated hiring a private investigator to follow an employee is legal. In this particular case, Diana Vail was fired by Raybestos Products, an automotive parts manufacturer in Crawfordsville, Ind., after an off-duty police officer hired by Raybestos produced evidence that she was abusing her sick leave benefits. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that such investigations were legal. Despite their legality, such investigations are controversial. Oracle and HewlettPackard have reportedly used private investigators to follow managers or uncover the source of leaks. Both actions spawned negative media coverage. There is no doubt, though, that some employees do abuse their sick leave benefits. In an earlier case, Raymond investigated an employee who called in sick with the flu for three days. Raymond discovered that she actually visited Orlando theme parks on each of those days. When Raymond showed her three time-stamped pictures of herself on rides, the employee’s first response was, “That’s not me!” In another case, Raymond caught a worker constructing an elaborate scheme to call in sick and go on a cruise. “When he was shown the video surveillance I’d done, he actually said to his boss, ‘I can’t believe you’d be so sneaky’.” Raymond said. “The hypocrisy is amazing.” Questions 1. If you had reason to believe someone was lying about an absence from work, do you think it would appropriate to investigate? 104 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 2. If excessive absenteeism is a real problem in an organization, are there alternatives to surveillance? If so, what are they, and do they have any limitations of their own? Source: E. Spitznagel, “The Sick-Day Bounty Hunters,” Business Week (December 6-12, 2010), pp. 93-95; D. Levine, “Oracle Enlists Private Eyes to Find HP CEO,” Reuters (November 9, 2010), http://in.reuters.com/; K. Gullo, “HP’s Apotheker, Like Carmen Sandiego, Focus at Trial,” Businessweek (November 10, 2010), http://www.businessweek.com/. Case Incident 1 Long Hours, Hundreds of E-Mails, and No Sleep: Does This Sound Like a Satisfying Job? This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. Although the 40-hour workweek is now the exception rather than the norm, some individuals are taking things to the extreme. John Bishop, 31, is an investment banker who works for Citigroup’s global energy team in New York. A recent workday for Bishop consisted of heading to the office for a conference call at 6:00 p.m. He left the office at 1:30 a.m. and had to be on a plane that same morning for a 9:00 a.m. presentation in Houston. Following the presentation, Bishop returned to New York the same day, and by 7:00 p.m., he was back in his office to work an additional three hours. Says Bishop, “I might be a little skewed to the workaholic, but realistically, expecting 90 to 100 hours a week is not at all unusual.” Irene Tse, 34, heads the government bond-trading division at Goldman Sachs. For ten years, she has seen the stock market go from all-time highs to recession levels. Such fluctuations can mean millions of dollars in either profits or losses. “There are days when you can make a lot, and other days where you lose so much you’re just stunned by what you’ve done,” says Tse. She also states that she hasn’t slept completely through the night in years and frequently wakes up several times during the night to check the global market status. Her average workweek? Eighty hours. “I’ve done this for 10 years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of days in my career when I didn’t want to come to work. Every day I wake up and I can’t wait to get here.” 105 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Tony Kurz, 33, is a managing director at Capital Alliance Partners and raises funds for real-estate investments. However, these are not your average properties. He often travels to exotic locations like Costa Rica and Hawaii, wooing prospective clients. He travels more than 300,000 miles a year, often sleeping on planes and dealing with jet lag. Kurz is not the only one he knows with such a hectic work schedule. His girlfriend, Avery Baker, logs around 400,000 miles a year, working as the senior vice president of marketing for Tommy Hilfiger. “It’s not easy to maintain a relationship like this,” says Kurz. But do Kurz and Baker like their jobs? You bet. David Clark, 35, is the vice president of global marketing for MTV. His job often consists of traveling around the globe to promote the channel, as well as to keep up with the global music scene. If he is not traveling (Clark typically logs 200,000 miles a year), a typical day consists of waking at 6:30 a.m. and immediately responding to numerous messages that have accumulated over the course of the night. He then goes to his office, where throughout the day he will respond to another 500 messages or so from clients around the world. If he’s lucky, he gets to spend an hour a day with his son, but then it’s back to work until he finally goes to bed around midnight. Says Clark, “there are plenty of people who would love to have this job. They’re knocking on the door all the time. So that’s motivating.” Many individuals would balk at the prospect of a 60-hour or more workweek with constant traveling and little time for anything else. However, some individuals are exhilarated by such professions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004, about 17 percent of managers worked more than 60 hours per week. But the demands of such jobs are clearly not for everyone. Many quit, with turnover levels at 55 percent for consultants and 30 percent for investment bankers, according to Vault.com. However, it is clear that such jobs, which are time consuming and often stressful, can be satisfying to some individuals. Questions 1. Do you think that only certain individuals are attracted to these types of jobs, or is it the characteristics of the jobs themselves that are satisfying? Answer: This is an excellent discussion starter for students. You may wish to focus on personality characteristics, life/work balance issues, and/or environmental concerns. Factors such as age, gender, etc, may also play a role. 2. What characteristics of these jobs that might contribute to increased levels of job satisfaction? Answer: Have students “apply” the various approaches to defining job satisfaction. For example, is the job as a whole satisfying? Are there certain elements in these jobs that are preferred? 106 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page 3. Given that the four individuals we just read about tend to be satisfied with their jobs, how might this satisfaction relate to their job performance, citizenship behavior, and turnover? Answer: We would expect that citizenship behavior would be positively affected and these individuals would likely remain in their jobs. As for job performance, there is no direct correlation between satisfaction and performance. However, it can be inferred from commitment and staying with the job over a longer period of time. 4. Recall David Clark’s statement, “there are plenty of people who would love to have this job. They’re knocking on the door all the time.” How might Clark’s perceptions of having a job that many others desire contribute to his job satisfaction? Answer: This could have a positive impact on job satisfaction. If others perceive the job as positive, the occupant may also view it this way. Source: Based on L. Tischler; “Extreme Jobs (And the People Who Love Them),” Fast Company, April 2005, pp. 55–60. http://www.glo-jobs.com/article.php?article_no=87. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-2-face classes or synchronous online classes such as BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. Case Incident 2 Crafting a Better Job This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. Consider for a moment a midlevel manager at a multinational foods company, Fatima, who would seem to be at the top of her career. She’s consistently making her required benchmarks and goals, she has built successful relationships with colleagues, and senior management have identified her as “high potential.” But she isn’t happy with her work. She’d be much more interested in understanding how her organization can use social media in marketing efforts. Ideally, she’d like to quit and find something that better suits her passions, but in the current economic environment this may not be an option. So she has decided to proactively reconfigure her current job. Fatima is part of a movement towards job “crafting,” which is the process of deliberately reorganizing your job so that it better fits your motives, strengths, and passions. The core of job crafting is creating diagrams of day-to-day activities with a coach. Then you and 107 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page the coach collaboratively identify which tasks fit with your personal passions, and which tend to drain motivation and satisfaction. Next the client and coach work together to imagine ways to emphasize preferred activities and de-emphasize those that are less interesting. Many people engaged in job crafting find that upon deeper consideration, they have more control over their work than they thought. So how did Fatima craft her job? She first noticed that she was spending too much of her time monitoring her team’s performance and answering team questions, and not enough time working on the creative projects that inspire her. She then considered how to modify her relationship with the team so that these activities incorporated her passion for social media strategies, with team activities more centered around developing new marketing. She also identified members of her team who might be able to help her implement these new strategies and directed her interactions with these individuals towards her new goals. As a result, not only has her engagement in her work increased, but she has also developed new ideas that are being recognized and advanced within the organization. In sum, she has found that by actively and creatively examining her work, she has been able to craft her current job into one that is truly satisfying. Questions 1. Why do you think many people are in jobs that are not satisfying? Do organizations help people craft satisfying and motivating jobs, and if not, why not? Answer: The student’s answer for this question will be an opinion. The Why or Why Not view might suggest that firms do try to create satisfying jobs by incorporating a number of elements including job enrichment, job rotation, job education, and job training (different from education) as methods to make job satisfaction higher. Other students will indicate that firms do not try to make jobs more satisfying. They will likely say that firms want productivity regardless of how satisfied the employees are. 2. Think about how you might reorient yourself to your own job. Are the principles of job crafting described above relevant to your work? Why or why not? Answer: Again, this is an opinion answer. Students will compare their work experiences to the example of Fatima. 3. Some contend that job crafting sounds good in principle but is not necessarily available to everyone. What types of jobs are probably not amenable to job crafting activities? Answer: Again, this is an opinion answer. But students will likely suggestion highly routine jobs such as assembly line worker, customer services representative and the like. 4. Are there any potential drawbacks to the job crafting approach? How can these concerns be minimized? Answer: One of the concerns most likely to be mentioned by students is the erosion of focus on the job to be done. The concern would be that modifying job methods might lead to more inefficient ways of completing the task, and therefore, a loss of productivity. 108 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page Source: Based on A. Wrzesniewski, J. M. Berg, and J. E. Dutton, “Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want,” Harvard Business Review, (June 2010), pp. 114-117; A. Wrzesniewski and J. E. Dutton, “Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work,” Academy of Management Review 26, (2010), pp. 179-201; and J. Caplan, “Hate Your Job? Here’s How to Reshape It,” Time (Dec. 4, 2009), www.time.com Instructor’s Choice Discovering Your Own VALS This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. It is always difficult to assess one’s values because of the various factors that can influence values. One company that has come up with an interesting but simple approach to values designation and assessment is SRI Consulting Business Intelligence. SRI developed a topology called VALS (Values and Lifestyles). This trademarked process assesses a person’s values and lifestyles with respect to their primary motivation and resources. A person’s primary motivation would determine what in the person’s meaningful core would govern his or her actions and activities. Resources go beyond mere wealth or possessions. Resources include personality traits (such as energy, selfconfidence, and so forth) and how these traits match to demographics and resources. Through the VALS studies, SRI has devised eight segments that reveal a great deal about a person’s values and how they live their life. For more information on VALS and SRI see www.sric-bi.com. Go to the Web site and find the link to VALS. See the VALS survey link and take the VALS survey (it only takes a few minutes). List the VALS segment that you match and describe the characteristics of your segment. What surprises (if any) were there for you? Go to the link that describes the VALS Types. After reading about the various types, which types would be the easiest to manage? The most difficult? Explain. The instructor will ask everyone to indicate their VALS type and list the results on the board. Find another person that has your same VALS type from the list. Briefly interview them to see what you have in common and any clear differences. Comment on these similarities and differences. By knowing what you now know about your partner (and his or her VALS type), what managerial conclusions could you now draw? Instructor Discussion Students generally enjoy this exercise and can prepare it prior to class. They will receive a nice printout from SRI indicating their VALS segment with a recap of the 109 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page characteristics of a person from that segment. However, before assigning this project, it is recommended that the instructor visit the Web site to insure that all links are still as described above as these links often change. By examining the brief characterizations of the various VALS types, students should be able to see that the following generalizations can be made: Actualizers—successful with many resources open to change Fulfilled—satisfied, reflective, comfortable, practical Achievers—career-oriented, avoid risk, self-discovery Experiencers—impulsive, young, offbeat, love risk Believers—strong principles, favor proven brands Strivers—like achievers, but with fewer resources, need approval Makers—action-oriented, self-sufficiency, do-it-yourselfers Strugglers—bottom-of-ladder, immediate gratification Though VALS has been used to study consumer lifestyles it can also tell us something about a person’s values that can then be studied by managers. Students will enjoy talking among themselves about their characteristics. EXPLORING OB TOPICS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB This exercise contributes to Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Compare and contrast the major job attitudes; Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; and AACSB Learning Goal: Reflective thinking skills. Search Engines are our navigational tool to explore the WWW. Some commonly used search engines are: www.excite.com www.google.com www.yahoo.com www.lycos.com www.hotbot.com www.bing.com 1. Jeff Van Duzer wrote an excellent piece on ethics in business, which can be accessed at http://www.ethix.org/article.php3?id=212. Write a two page paper relating his three pragmatic factors (speed, spin and stuff) to your life as a student or employee. Have you felt the pressure he talks about? Do you think they are contributors to ethical lapses as he suggests? Do you think the strategies he recommends are ones you could apply to your life as a student or employee? For example, you might find donating money at this time unpractical, but maybe you are donating time as a tutor or at other campus activities. 2. How satisfied are you with your job (or a job you had in the past)? Take a job satisfaction quiz at http://www.humanlinks.com/orgsn/job_satisfaction.htm. 110 Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Page a. Job satisfaction—what are people saying about their job satisfaction? Try these web sites to find out more about what American workers are saying: http://www.inc.com/magazine/19980601/946.html http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,61742, 00.html http://www.humanlinks.com/orgsn/job_satisfaction.htm Are you surprised at what you read? Write a paragraph or two on the three most important facts you learned from these web sites. Bring to class for further discussion. 3. What do American workers value? At Workforce.com you will find several articles on the topic. (You will need to complete a free registration.) http://www.workforce.com. 4. What is the state of employee loyalty? Do organizations even care if employees are loyal? What are the consequences if they are not? Conduct a web search on employee loyalty and write a two-page paper answering the above questions. www.workforce.com has several excellent articles on the topic. (You will need to complete a free registration to access them.) 5. Organizations often conduct attitude surveys of their employees. What is it that they want to know? Go to: http://www.hr-survey.com/EmployeeAttitude.htm to learn more about employee attitude surveys. Write a paragraph or two on what you think would be the three most important topics would be to include on an attitude survey and why. 111