Attitudes can have a significant effect on the behavior of a person at work. In the
world of work we are concerned with attitudes toward supervision, pay, benefits,
promotion or anything that might trigger positive or negative reactions. Employee
sat isfaction and att itudes represent one of the key areas of measur ing
organizational effectiveness. This study considers the role of workplace attitudes
in influencing an important organizational outcome (company satisfaction).
Allport (1966) defines attitude as “individual mental processes which determine
both the actual and potential responses of each person in the social world.” ‘Mental
processes’ imply thoughts and feelings towards a concept such as information and
communication technology. Allport’s definition also indicates that attitude could
determine ‘responses’ or reaction to occurrences around the individual. Such a
reaction can be positive or negative.
Although job attitudes are assumed to relate to in-role job performance,
research generally has not supported any of the intuitive relationships. Different
studies have observed either positive, negative, or no relationships between job
attitudes and job performance.
Understanding, predicting, and improving employee behavior are major aspects
of a manager’s job. Managers often try to influence work-related attitudes in order
to create behavioral changes, and basically rely on moderating variables such as
the importance of the attitude, its specificity, its accessibility, whether social pressures
exist between attitudes, and whether employees have direct experience with the
attitude to impact what employees behaviorally do. This attitude-behavior relationship
asserts that attitudes significantly predict behavior by taking the previously mentioned
moderating variables into account (Kraus, 1995; Ajzen, 1996 and 2001; and Sutton,
1998). The authors suggested the significance of attitude leading to behavior. |