1. Dr Joan Harvey Dr George Erdos
Attitudes at Work
Dr Joan Harvey
Dr George Erdos

2. 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

3. Components of Work Attitudes
Affective component
How a worker feels about his or her job or organisation
Work attitudes
Collections of feelings, beliefs, & predispositions to behave in one’s job & organisation
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

4. Personality
The enduring ways a person has of feeling, thinking and behaving
Work situation
The work itself Coworkers, supervisors and subordinates Physical working conditions Working hours, pay and job security
Attitudes to work
The collection of feelings, beliefs and predispositions to behave in one’s job or organisation
Social influence
Coworkers Groups Culture
Values
Intrinsic work values
Extrinsic work values

5. Personality and work values (most stable)
Work attitudes (moderately stable)
Work moods (most changing)
Stronger relationships
Weaker relationships

6. Why Might Attitudes Matter at Work?
Organizations are now often conducting employee satisfaction surveys [even patient surveys in NHS]
Attitudes to work and/or employer 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

7. 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)

8. 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]

9. 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

10. 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
Intention
Behaviour
Beliefs about how favourably or unfavourably other people would react if one performed the behaviour and motivation to comply with their views
Perceived behavioural control
Subjective norm

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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. UNISON, UNITE, 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

14. 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?
* Covered in Motivation

15. 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]

16. 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]

17. Thank you for listening
Dr Joan Harvey
Dr George Erdos
Newcastle University