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Early research on attitudes assumed that they were casually related to behavior; that is’ the attitudes that people hold determine what they do. In the late 1960s, this assumed relationship between attitudes and behavior (A-B) was challenged by a review of the research. More recent research demonstrates that attitudes significantly predict future behavior; and this relationship can be enhanced by taking moderating variables into account.

Moderating variables: The most powerful moderators have been found to be the importance of the attitudes, its specificity, its accessibility, whether there exist social pressures, and whether the person has direct experience with the attitudes.

Important attitudes are ones that reflect fundamental values, self interest, identification with individual or groups that a person values.

The more specific the attitudes and the more specific the behavior, the stronger the link between these two.

Attitudes are easily remembered are more likely to predict behavior than attitudes that are not accessible in memory. Interestingly, the more likely to remember the attitudes that are frequently expressed.

Discrepancies between attitudes and behavior are more likely to occur when social pressures to behave in certain ways hold exceptional power. This may explain why tobacco executives, who are not smokers themselves and who tend to believe the research linking smoking and cancer, don’t actively discourage officer from smoking in their offices.

Finally, the attitudes – behavior (A-B) relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which the individual has direct personal experience. When few experiences regarding an attitudes issues or given little previous thought to it he will tend to infer his attitudes from his behavior. However, when the attitudes have been established for a while and are well defined, those attitudes are likely to guide the behavior.

 

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MEASURING JOB SATISFACTION

Job satisfaction can be defined as a collection of feelings that an individual holds towards his or her job. The two most widely used approaches are a single global rating and summation score made up of a number of job facets.

1.     Single global rating: The single global method is nothing more than asking individuals to respond to one question, such as “all things considered, how satisfied are you with the job?” respondent then reply by circling a number from one to five that correspond to answers from highly satisfied to highly dissatisfied. 

2.    Summation score: A summation of job facets is more sophisticated. It identified key elements in a job and asks for the employee’s feelings about each. Typical factors that would be included are the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities and relation with coworkers. These factors are rated on a standardized scale and then added up to create an overall job satisfaction score.

WHAT DETERMINES/DETERMINERS JOB SATISFACTION

1. Mentally challenging work: Employees tend to prefer jobs that give them opportunities to use their skills and abilities and offer a variety of tasks, freedom and feedback on how well they are doing. These characteristics make work mentally challenging.
2. Equitable rewards: Employees want pay systems and promotion policies that they perceive as being just, unambiguous and in line with their expectations. When pay is seen as fair based on job demands, individual skill level and community pay standards, satisfaction is likely to result.
3. Supportive working conditions: Employees are concerned with their work environment for both personal comfort and facilitating doing a good job. Employees prefer physical surroundings that are not dangerous or uncomfortable.
4. Supportive colleagues: People get more out of work than merely money or tangible achievement. For most employees, work also fills the need for social interaction. Having friendly and supportive co-workers leads to increased job satisfaction.

 

EFFECTS OF JOB SATISFACTION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Mangers’ interest in job satisfaction tends to centre on its effect on employee performance.

1. Satisfaction and productivity: Interestingly, if we move from the individual level to that of the organization, there is renewed support for the original satisfaction – performance relationship. When satisfaction and productivity data are gathered for the organization as a whole, rather than at the individual level, we find that the organization with more satisfied employees tends to e more effective than organization with fewer satisfied employees. So it might be true that the happy organizations are more productive.
2. Satisfaction and absenteeism: We find a consistence negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. Although it certainly makes sense that dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, other factors have an impact on the relationship and reduce the correlation coefficient.
3. Satisfaction and turnover: Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover, but the correlation is stronger than what we found for absenteeism. Evidence indicates that an important moderator of the satisfaction – turnover relationship is the employee’s level of performance. Specially, the level of satisfaction is less important in predicting turnover for superior performance.

 

JOB SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Employee satisfaction is positively related to customer satisfaction. The evidence indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In service organization, customer retention and defection are highly dependent on how frontline employees deal with customers. Satisfied employees are likely to be friendly, upbeat, and responsive – which customers appreciate. As satisfied employees are less prone to turnover, customers are more likely to be encounter familiar faces and received experience service. These qualities build customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Dissatisfied customers can increase employee job dissatisfaction. Employees who have regular contact with customers report that rude, thoughtless or unreasonably demanding customers adversely effect the employees’ job satisfaction.