This book takes on the audacious task of reviewing the literature on one of the core content areas within the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychologyâs (SIOP, 2016) Guidelines for Education and Training in Industrial-Organizational Psychology: Attitude Theory, Measurement, and Change (see Competency 7 from the Guidelines):
Providing a thorough review of this literature is challenging for three reasons. First, as the SIOP Guidelines note, the term âjob attitudeâ subsumes several ostensibly distinct constructsâfor example, perceptions of fairness and support, job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, and work engagement (for further discussion of the many variables described as âjob attitudes,â see Brief, 1998; Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006). Because of their large number, it is difficult for one person to develop expertise in every type of job attitude (or expertise in the relationships among these attitudes). And in many instances, an individual researcher may have developed expertise in one attitude while generally neglecting the others.
To address this challenge, Chapters 3 through 10 each focus on an individual job attitude. We include the following as suggested by the competency: perceptions of justice, perceptions of organizational support, job involvement, commitment, job satisfaction, and engagement. And, based on reviewer suggestions, we also include chapters on organizational identification and job embeddedness. We included an additional chapter focusing on team-based attitudesâa timely topic, given that work in modern organizations often occurs within a team context (Devaraj & Jiang, 2019; Shuffler et al., 2018). Each chapter was authored by experts on that particular job attitude. And in the closing chapter we critically evaluate the state of the job attitude literature, noting themes and limitations that cut across the various attitudes. We suggest future directions for job attitude research. And based on what we know as a result of this book, we made some practical implications for organizations to consider.
Second, the inconsistencies in how researchers have used the term âattitudesâ has added to the difficulty in organizing this book. When we questioned past and present members of SIOPâs Education and Training Committee (e.g., Janet Barnes-Farrell, Jeannette Cleveland, Whitney Botsford Morgan, Stephanie Payne, personal communications, 2019), they affirmed something that we suspected from the outsetâthat researchers often use the term âjob attitudesâ as a catch-all phrase for several workplace psychological constructs. Our experience editing this book reinforces this suspicion. The chapters in this book define such terms as perceptions, identities, bonds, and motivational states with only the job satisfaction chapter clearly reflecting a âjob attitude.â However, because the SIOP competency considers them together, we include them in the current book. Again, in the final chapter, we attempt to untangle these constructs and then organize them in a more coherent way.
The sheer volume of job attitude research presents a final challenge to reviewing the literature. A recent Google Scholar search using the term âjob satisfaction,â for example, yielded over 1.7 million references (see Table 1.1). Although less widely studied than job satisfaction, the remaining job attitudes examined in the current book have each been referenced several thousand times. Needless to say, we have a lot of ground to cover. Our goal in this opening chapter is to clear a path for the subsequent chapters. We first define the term âjob attitude.â We then discuss why job attitudes (and the other workplace psychological constructs) are importantâwhat, in other words, are their theoretical and practical significance? Finally, we present an overview of the subsequent chapters.
Table 1.1 Number of Google Scholar References in Various Job Attitude Constructs
Job Attitude | Number of Google Scholar References | Chapter |
Organizational Justice | > 91,000 | 3 |
Perceived Organizational Support | ~ 58,000 | 4 |
Organizational Identification | > 42,000 | 5 |
Job involvement | > 49,000 | 6 |
Organizational Commitment | ~ 476,000 | 7 |
Job Embeddedness | > 10,000 | 8 |
Job Satisfaction | > 1,700,000 | 9 |
Employee Engagement | ~ 110,000 | 10 |
Defining Job Attitudes and Other Workplace Psychological Constructs
In describing the nature of job attitudes, I-O psychologists draw heavily from the social psychological definition of the term âattitude.â Social psychologists describe attitudes as representing a personâs evaluative response toward an attitude object (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). As Wagner notes in Chapter 2, attitudes have valenceâa positive or negative direction (e.g., good vs. bad)âand they differ in the intensity associated with that valence (e.g., extremely good vs. moderately bad; Wagner, Chapter 2, [page 14]). Attitudes, in other words, are directed toward something, such as a group of people (e.g., immigrants), a specific person (e.g., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), an idea (e.g., capitalism), or a physical object (e.g., blue jeans). In the case of job attitudes, the attitude object is workplace-related. Commonly studied workplace-related attitude objects include oneâs job, employer, or the concept of being employed. Note that job attitude objects may vary in their level of abstraction. The most general conceptualization of job satisfaction, for instance, is global satisfactionâa personâs overall level of satisfaction with his or her job (Spector, 1997). More specific facets of job satisfaction include satisfaction with (a) work tasks, (b) supervision, (c) coworkers, (d) pay, and (e) promotional opportunities (Bowling, Wagner, & Beehr, 2018; Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969). These facets can be further divided into more specific dimensions. Pay satisfaction, for instance, comprises several dimensions, including satisfaction with pay level, pay raises, and pay administration (Heneman & Schwab, 1985).
Social psychologists have further describe attitudes as having both affective and cognitive components (see Brief, 1998). The former reflects how a person feels toward the attitude object; the latter reflects what a person thinks or believes about the attitude object. Indeed, the distinction between affect and cognition is reflected in the content of job attitude measures (see Brief & Roberson, 1989; Moorman, 1993; Schleicher et al., 2015). To understand this distinction, consider the difference between the hypothetical items âI like my supervisorâ and âMy supervisor is competent.â The first item clearly contains affect (note the word âlikeâ), whereas the second item is more cognitiveâit reflects a âcold,â ostensibly factual description of oneâs supervisor.
Although social psychologists often define attitudes as also including a behavioral component, most I-O psychologists consider behaviors to be a consequence of job attitudes and not part of the job attitude construct per se (see Judge et al., 2001). Attitudes and behavior, in other words, are conceptually different; the former reflect internal psychological states, whereas the latter reflect outwardly observable actions. This distinction is also borne out of the end of the SIOP competency, 7: ââŚknowledge of the literature on the relationship between attitudes and behavior is important if for no other reason than to know the limitations of the connections between these two sets of constructsâ (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc. 2016).
The SIOP competency also includes the words âbeliefsâ and âopinions,â although in our conversations with members of the SIOP Guidelines committee, no one could recall why those particular terms were used, other than to acknowledge the fact that some of the constructs/measures might not technically be classified as attitudes. What is more interesting to note, though, is that the authors in many of the subsequent chapters do not use the terms âbeliefsâ or âopinionsâ either; rather, as noted above, they use âperceptions,â âidentity,â âbonds,â and âmotivational statesâ which are all distinct from attitudes and have their own social psychological bases. We will address these terms later in this chapter, throughout the subsequent chapters, then again in more detail in the final chapter. But because I-O psychologists refer to these job-related psychological constructs as âjob attitudes,â we continue to use that term for this chapter.
The Importance of Job Attitudes
The size of its research literature attests to the importance of job attitudes (see Table 1.1). But whatâs with all the fuss? Why do I-O psychologists seem to care so much about job attitudes? There are four primary answers to this question: (a) job attitudes are inherently valuable, (b) they provide organizations with diagnostic information, (c) they can be used for assessing the effectiveness of organizational interventions, and (d) they are potential causes of key organizational outcomes (see Spector, 1997). We review each of these in the following subsections.
Job Attitudes are Inherently Valuable
The professional associations that I-O psychologists typically belong toâincluding the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, Academy of Management, and SIOPâencourage their members to use their skills for the betterment of society. Principle A of the APAâs Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, for instance, states that âPsychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work . . .â One way that I-O psychologists can satisfy this mandate is through research and practice aimed at improving workersâ job attitudes. And indeed, there are good reasons to believe that improved job attitudes contribute to a better societyâjob attitudes (particularly job satisfaction) may contribute to more general forms of well-being (e.g., overall life satisfaction; Bowling, Eschleman, & Wang, 2010), they may relate...