a. Those who believe their coworkers support them are more likely to engage in
helpful behaviors, whereas those who have antagonistic relationships with
coworkers 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.
2. Finally, research shows that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely to
engage in OCBs.
B. 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.
C. Life Satisfaction
1. Research in Europe indicated that job satisfaction is positively correlated with life
satisfaction, and your attitudes and experiences in life spill over in to your job
approaches and experiences. Furthermore, life satisfaction decreases when people
become unemployed.
D. The Impact of Job Dissatisfaction
1. Introduction
a. There are a number of ways employees can express dissatisfaction. (Exhibit 3-6)
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.
2. Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables – productivity,
absenteeism, and turnover.
a. Voice and loyalty are constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate
unpleasant situations or to revive satisfactory working conditions.
b. It helps us to understand situations, such as those sometimes found among
unionized workers, where low job satisfaction is coupled with low turnover.
E. Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
1. Substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, gossiping, absenteeism, and
tardiness are examples of behaviors that are destructive to organizations.
2. They are indicators of a broader syndrome called counterproductive work behavior
(CWB), also termed deviant behavior in the workplace, or simply employee
withdrawal (see Chapter 1).
3. Like other behaviors we have discussed, CWB doesn’t just happen – the behaviors
often follow negative and sometimes longstanding attitudes.
4. Therefore, if we can identify the predictors of CWB, we may lessen the probability of
its effects.
5. Generally, job dissatisfaction predicts CWB.
a. People who are not satisfied with their work become frustrated, which lowers
their performance and makes them more likely to commit CWB.
6. Other research suggests that, in addition to vocational misfit (being in the wrong line
of work), lack of fit with the organization (working in the wrong kind of
organizational culture) also predicts CWBs.
a. According to U.K. research, sometimes CWB is an emotional reaction to
perceived unfairness, a way to try to restore an employee’s sense of equity
exchange.
7. As a manager, you can take steps to mitigate CWB. You can poll employee attitudes,
for instance, and identify areas for workplace improvement.
8. If there is no vocational fit, the employee will not be fulfilled, so you can screen for
that.
9. Tailoring tasks so a person’s abilities and values can be exercised should increase job
satisfaction and reduce CWB.
10. Furthermore, creating strong teams, integrating supervisors with them, providing
formalized team policies, and introducing team-based incentives may help lower the
CWB “contagion” that lowers the standards of the group.
F. 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. Generally, when numerous alternative jobs are available, dissatisfied employees have
high absence rates, but when there are few alternatives, dissatisfied employees have
the same rate of absence as satisfied employees.
G. 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 to leave 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 that 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.
H. 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. 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.
II. 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 all the
way to high customer satisfaction and profits.
C. Some take-away lessons from the study of attitudes include the following:
1. Of the major attitudes—job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational
commitment, perceived organizational support (POS), and employee engagement—
remember that an employee’s job satisfaction level is the best single predictor of
behavior.
2. Pay attention to your employees’ job satisfaction levels as determinants of their
performance, turnover, absenteeism, and withdrawal behaviors.
3. Measure employee job attitudes objectively and at regular intervals in order to
determine how employees are reacting to their work.
4. To raise employee satisfaction, evaluate the fit between the employee’s work interests
and on the intrinsic parts of his/her job to create work that is challenging and
interesting to the individual.
5. Consider the fact that high pay alone is unlikely to create a satisfying work
environment.
An Ethical Choice
Office Talk
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior
Learning Outcomes: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior; Describe the
components of human resource practices
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning
You are peacefully at work in your cubicle when your coworker invades your space, sitting on
your desk and nearly overturning your coffee. As she talks about the morning meeting, do you:
a) stop what you’re doing and listen; or b) explain that you’re in the middle of a project and ask
to talk some other time?
Your answer may reflect your attitude toward office talk, but it should be guided by whether your
participation is ethical. Sometimes, office conversations can help employees to process
information and find solutions to problems. Other times, office talk can be damaging to
everyone. Consider the scenario from two perspectives: oversharing and venting.
More than 60 percent of 514 professional employees recently surveyed indicated they encounter
individuals who frequently share too much about themselves. Some are self-centered,
narcissistic, and “think you want to know all the details of their lives,” according to psychologist
Alan Hilfer. Despite the drawbacks, oversharers can be strong contributors. Billy Bauer, director
of marketing for manufacturer Royce Leather, is an oversharer who boasts about his latest sales –
which may push other employees to work harder. Oversharers can also contribute to teamwork
when they share personal stories related to organizational goals, according to a Harvard Business
Review article.
Now let’s look at this another way. According to Yale Professor Amy Wrzesniewski,
organization-lovers are often “the first people to become offended” when they think the
organization is making wrong decisions. They can become emotional, challenging, and
outspoken about their views. If they are not heard, they can increase their venting or withdraw.
Yet organization-lovers can be top performing employees: they are often highly engaged,
inspiring, and strong team players who are more likely to work harder than others. Venting their
frustrations helps restore a positive attitude to keep them high performing. Research indicates
that venting to coworkers can also build camaraderie.
Since guidelines for acceptable office conversation are almost nonexistent in the contemporary
age of openness, personalization, and transparency, you must decide what kinds of office talk are
ethical and productive. Knowing who is approaching you for conversation, why they are
approaching you, what they may talk about, and how you may keep the discussion productive
and ethical can help you choose whether to engage or excuse yourself.
Sources: S. Shellenbarger, “Office Oversharers: Don’t Tell Us about Last Night,” The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2014, D2; A. S. McCance, C.
D. Nye, L. Wang, K. S. Jones, and C. Chiu, “Alleviating the Burden of Emotional Labor: The Role of Social Sharing,” Journal of Management
(February 2013): 392–415; and S. Shellenbarger, “When It Comes to Work, Can You Care too Much?” The Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2014,
D3.
Class Exercise
1. Form groups of three to five students.
2. Have each group discuss whether anyone has observed similar situations develop in a
work situation or in school.
3. Evaluate how students indicate such situations manifested themselves and how they were
treated in the social setting.
4. 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-to-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.
Personal Inventory Assessments
Core Self Evaluation (CSE) Scale
In this chapter, you were introduced to the concept of core self-evaluation (CSE). You probably
have a general awareness of your CSE, or how you candidly view your capabilities. This PIA
can provide you with further insights.
Career OBjectives
How can I make my job better?
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior; Compare the major job attitudes;
Define job satisfaction
Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning
Honestly, I hate my job. But there are reasons I should stay: this is my first job out of college, it
pays pretty well, and it will establish my career. Is there any hope, or am I doomed until I quit?
— Taylor
Dear Taylor: You’re not doomed! You can work on your attitude to either improve your
experience or find a positive perspective. In other words, if you can turn “I hate my job” into
“this is what I’m doing to make my situation better,” your job satisfaction is likely to improve.
Try this:
• Write down everything you hate about your job, but wait until you have a few days off so you
can get a more objective viewpoint. Be specific. Keep asking yourself why, as in, “Why do I
dislike my office mate?” Also, consider your history: was the job always a problem, or perhaps
circumstances have changed?
• Now write down everything you like about the job. Again, be specific. Think about the
environment, the people, and the work separately. Find something positive, even if it’s
just the coffee in the break room.
• Compare your lists for clues about your attitude and job satisfaction. Look for mentions of the
work or the people. Job satisfaction is generally more strongly related to how interesting your
work is than it is to other factors. People, especially your supervisor, are important to your
attitude toward work as well.
• Read your lists aloud to a few trusted friends (you don’t want to rant about your boss with your
coworker). Ask them to help process your grievances. Are there deal-breakers like harassment?
• Decide whether you can talk with your manager about this. According to Roy L. Cohen, author
of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide, “consider whether how you’re being treated is
unique to you or shared by your colleagues.” If everyone has the same problem, especially if the
problem is the boss, you probably shouldn’t approach your manager. But changes can be made in
most situations. Based on the sources of your grievances and your ability to make changes in the
workplace, you may choose to address the issues, or develop skills for your next job. Meanwhile,
don’t sabotage yourself with sloppy performance and complaints. Instead, look for positive
reinforcement, join a professional organization, or volunteer. Happy employees are healthier. You
deserve to be one of them.
Sources: “Employee Engagement,” Workforce Management (February 2013): 19; A. Hurst, “Being ‘Good’ Isn’t the Only Way to Go,” The New
York Times, April 20, 2014, 4; R. E. Silverman, “Work as Labor or Love?” The Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2012, D3; H. J. Smith, T. F.
Pettigrew, G. M. Pippin, and S. Bialosiewicz, “Relative Deprivation: A Theoretical and Meta-Analytic Review,” Personality and Social
Psychology Review 16 (2012): 203–32; and A. Tugend, “Survival Skills for a Job You Detest,” The Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2012, B5.
Class Exercise
1. Divide students into groups of three to five each.
2. Ask each group to prepare a short paper to define how organizational commitment and
perceived organizational support contribute to job satisfaction.
3. Ask groups to brainstorm ways employers can better meet the needs of their employees.
4. Have the groups present their findings to the class.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-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?
“Happy Workers Means Happy Profits”
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior; Compare the major job attitudes;
Identify four employee responses to job dissatisfaction
Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior
AACSB: Reflective thinking
There are exceptions, of course, but this is basically true. A glance at the top 25 of Fortune’s Best
Companies to Work For reveals a list of recognizable profit leaders: Google, SAS, Edward Jones,
and REI, to name a few. However, all happiness is not created equal.
An employee who is happy because his dog just had puppies isn’t necessarily going to work
harder that day, for instance. In the same way, some employer happiness-inducers seem unrelated
to profit increases, such as Google’s bowling alley and Irish pub, Facebook’s free chocolate
lunches, and Salesforce.com’s off-the-charts parties. Profit is not about the established benefits,
either, though they’re important. Employees can appreciate Marriott’s hotel discounts, for
example, and research indicates employees highly value paid time off, a defined-contribution
retirement plan such as a 401(k), and lower health premiums. But many companies offer their
employees these benefits and are nowhere near the Fortune 500 companies.
It turns out that the value of happiness in the profit equation is in the level of employee
engagement. As Julie Gebauer, a managing director for Towers Watson, says, “It’s not just about
making them happy – that’s not a business issue. Engagement is.” Job engagement “represents
employees’ commitment … and the level of discretionary effort they are willing to put forth at
work,” writes Jack in the Box’s Senior VP Mark Blankenship. Happy employees with higher job
engagement are willing to work hard, make customers happy, and stay with the company – three
factors that affect the bottom line in a big way with productivity gains and reduced turnover
costs. And many of the Best Companies to Work For report great stock performance. A recent
review of 300 studies even revealed that turnover rates resulting from poor attitudes or low
engagement lead to poorer organizational performance.
So the moral of the story seems to be, treat others as we want to be treated. Pass the chocolate.
Sources: M. H. Blankenship, “Happier Employees + Happier Customers = More Profit,” HR Magazine (July 2012), pp. 36–-38;; A. Edmans,
“The Link Between Job Satisfaction and Firm Value, with Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility,” Academy of Management
Perspectives (November 2012), pp. 1–-19; “Getting Them to Stay,” Workforce Management (February 2013), p. 19; J. K. Harter et al., “Causal
Impact of Employee Work Perceptions on the Bottom Line of Organizations,” Perspectives on Psychological Science (July 2010), pp. 378–-389;
T.-Y. Park and J. D. Shaw, “Turnover Rates and Organizational Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology (March 2013),
pp. 268–-309; and J. Waggoner, “Do Happy Workers Mean Higher Profit?” USA Today (February 20, 2013), pp. B1–-B2.
Class Exercise
1. Brainstorm with students about situations in which they knew workers/employees were
happy with their company and engaged with their jobs.
2. What is the difference between an organization that offers perks to employees and an
organization where employees have high job engagement?
3. Discuss why employee engagement is essential to a satisfied workforce.
4. Students should come to realize that companies that emphasize high job engagement will
have a more productive workforce, happier customers, and lower employee turnover and
absenteeism.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-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.
Point/Counterpoint
Employer-Employee Loyalty Is an Outdated Concept
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior; Compare the major job attitudes
Learning Outcome: Explain the relationship between personality traits and individual behavior
AACSB: Reflective thinking
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.
Professor 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.”
The loyalty on each side of the equation is weak. For the most part, this is warranted – why
retain employees who are subpar performers? It’s only a matter of the employer handling the
loyalty of employees with respect. Admittedly, some breaches happen. For example, Renault
ended the 31-year career of employee Michel Balthazard (and two others) on false charges of
espionage. When the wrongness 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 employees’ loyalty to their employers, that 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.” There just isn’t an expectation of loyalty. In fact, only 9 percent of recent
college graduates would stay with an employer for more than a year if they didn’t like the job,
research indicated. But there is nothing wrong with this. A “loyal” employee who stays with the
organization but isn’t satisfied with the job can do a lot of damage. At best, this person will be
less productive. At worst, he or she can engage in years worth of damaging CWB. For the
worker, staying with an organization forever—no matter what—can limit career and income
prospects.
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 of loyalty.
Counterpoint
Agreed: the word loyalty is outdated when it refers to employers and employees. But the basic
concept is valid in the workplace. We now just measure loyalty with finer measurements, such as
organizational trust and organizational commitment. There certainly are employers and
employees who show little loyalty to each other, but that isn’t the norm.
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.” Commitment. Engagement. Trust. These are some of the building blocks of loyalty.
It is true that the employer–employee relationship has changed. For example, (largely) gone are
the days when employers provided guaranteed payout pensions to which employees contribute
nothing. But is that such a bad thing? Many employers have helped employees take charge of
their own retirement plans. Moreover, it’s not that loyalty is dead, but rather that employers are
loyal to a different kind of employee. True, employers no longer refuse to fire a long-tenured but
incompetent employee, which is a good thing. These employees can bring down everyone’s
productivity and morale. Furthermore, in a globalized world where customer options are
plentiful, organizations with “deadwood”—people who don’t contribute—will not be
competitive enough to survive. Companies are instead loyal to employees who do their jobs well,
and that is as it should be.
In short, employees become loyal—trusting, engaged, and committed—when organizations and
their people act decently. Employers with superior managers who empower their employees
obtain high levels of this kind of loyalty. A true reciprocal relationship is a stronger business
model than employees staying with an organization for years in exchange for an organization’s
caretaking. Bonds of trust and loyalty rest on the relationships of individuals. Workplace
psychologist Binna Kandola observes, “Workplaces may have changed but loyalty is not dead –
the bonds between people are too strong.”
Sources: “If You Started a Job and You Didn’t Like It, How Long Would You Stay?” USA Today, June 11, 2012, 1B; O. Gough
and S. Arkani, “The Impact of the Shifting Pensions Landscape on the Psychological Contract,” Personnel Review 40, no. 2
(2011): 173–84; “Loyalty Gap Widens,” USA Today, May 16, 2012, 1B; P. Korkki, “The Shifting Definition of Worker Loyalty,” The
New York Times, April 24, 2011, BU8; I. Macsinga, C. Sulea, P. Sarbescu, and C. Dumitru, “Engaged, Committed and Helpful
Employees: The Role of Psychological Empowerment,” Journal of Psychology 19, no. 3, 263–76; M. Top, M. Akdere, and M.
Tarcan, “Examining Transformational Leadership, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Organizational Trust in
Turkish Hospitals: Public Servants versus Private Sector Employees,” International Journal of Human Resource Management
26, no. 9 (2015): 1259–82; and “Is Workplace Loyalty an Outmoded Concept?” Financial Times, March 8, 2011, www.
ft.com/, accessed July 29, 2015.
Class Exercise
Complete 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 a 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 to 5 things they
really liked/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 likes or dislikes, and motivation or demotivation
for the job.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-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.