Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Industrial, Work & Organizational

The SAGE Handbook of Industrial, Work &
Organizational

Attitudes: Satisfaction, Commitment and Involvement

Contributors: Author:Marcus Credé

Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Industrial, Work & Organizational

Chapter Title: “Attitudes: Satisfaction, Commitment and Involvement”

Pub. Date: 2018

Access Date: May 2, 2021

Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd

City: 55 City Road

Print ISBN: 9781446207222

Online ISBN: 9781473914957

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781473914957.n2

Print pages: 3-23

© 2018 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781473914957.n2

Attitudes: Satisfaction, Commitment and Involvement

Attitudes: Satisfaction, Commitment and Involvement
Marcus Credé

INTRODUCTION

Based on classic definitions of attitudes (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), and more recent definitions of specific job
attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, Judge, Hulin, & Dalal, 2012), this chapter defines job attitudes as ‘affective
responses to and cognitive evaluations of job experiences and the job situation’. Because job experiences
and the job situation are themselves multidimensional many constructs with attitudinal features have been
identified and studied. These attitudinal constructs differ primarily with regard to the specificity of the entity
being evaluated: some focusing on broad entities such as the organization in which the job is embedded (e.g.,
organizational commitment, Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982; Perceived Organizational Support, Rhoades &
Eisenberger, 2002) or the overall job situation (e.g., overall job satisfaction), while others focus more narrowly
on the work being performed (e.g., employee engagement, Macey & Schneider, 2008; job involvement;
Brown, 1996), ancillary job features (e.g., perceived coworker support; Zhou & George, 2001) or even
specific facets of individual job features such as the degree to which supervisors interact respectfully with
subordinates (interpersonal justice, Colquitt et al., 2001).

Rather than attempt to discuss the vast literatures related to each of these constructs this chapter focuses
instead on the three constructs that are most widely agreed to be attitudinal in nature: job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, and job involvement. Five broad issues are discussed. First, the theoretical
nature of these constructs is discussed with a focus on how the understanding of each construct has evolved
over time. Second, theories and models of how attitudes are formed and how they are related to workplace
outcomes are discussed. Third, the measurement of the three constructs is described. Fourth, this chapter
discusses two challenges for job attitude research; one regarding the validity of the most widely studied model
of organizational commitment, the other relating to the manner in which these attitude constructs are related
to each other. The chapter concludes with a discussion of research on these three attitude constructs from an
international perspective with suggestions as to how variability across countries and cultures might be further
explored and how past findings might be synthesized.

JOB SATISFACTION

Modern conceptualizations of job satisfaction share two features. First, job satisfaction is multidimensional
and organized hierarchically such that overall job satisfaction is determined by an aggregation of satisfaction
with specific facets of the job (e.g., pay, coworkers). As such overall job satisfaction is a formative (or
aggregate) construct and not a reflective higher-order construct (, Wong, & Mobley, 1998) like most other
higher-order constructs (e.g., core self-evaluations; Judge, Locke, & Durham, 1997). Second, job satisfaction
has both affective and cognitive components. Earlier definitions disagreed on whether job satisfaction was
primarily cognitive (e.g., Motowidlo, 1996; Weiss, 2002), or affective (e.g., Locke, 1976) in nature. Motowidlo
(1996, p. 176) described job satisfaction as a ‘judgment about the favorability of the work environment’, while
Weiss (2002, p. 175), seeking to distinguish job satisfaction from affect and aligning it more closely with how
job satisfaction is typically measured, defines it as ‘a positive or negative evaluative judgment one makes
about one’s job or job situation’. In contrast, Smith, Kendall, and Hulin (1969, p. 7) view job satisfaction as
‘feelings or affective responses to facets of the situation’ and Locke (1976, p. 1304) defined job satisfaction
as a ‘a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences’,
a definition that has been widely echoed by others (e.g., Cranny, Smith, & Stone, 1992). Importantly, those
proposing the inclusion of affect in the definition of job satisfaction have typically positioned affect as a
consequence of the cognitive appraisal. Thus, an employee may have a positive emotional reaction to his or
her job because the cognitive appraisal highlighted the interesting work, wonderful coworkers, and excellent
pay that characterize the job.

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A relatively recent change in this positioning of the affective component of job satisfaction relative to the
cognitive/evaluative component comes via Affective Events Theory (AET, Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996; see
also Judge, Hulin, & Dalal, 2012; Brief & Weiss, 2002). AET also acknowledges the dual cognitive and
affective nature of job satisfaction but reconceptualizes their relationship to each other. That is, workplace
events such as an interaction with an angry customer, unfair performance feedback, or a helpful gesture from
a coworker drive momentary affective reactions to the job. These affective reactions are part of job satisfaction
but also influence the individual’s cognitive evaluations of the job (Weiss, Nicholas, & Daus, 1999). Repeated
negative affective events are integrated into the cognitive evaluation of the job, although this cognitive
evaluation of job satisfaction is also influenced by more objective and stable features of the job situation
such as the pay and benefits that are received. Importantly, AET also acknowledges that the cognitive/
evaluative component of job satisfaction also impacts job affect. Undesirable stable job characteristics might
result in negative job affect via a process of rumination. From the AET perspective the affective component
of job satisfaction is therefore both an antecedent and consequence of the cognitive/evaluative component. A
number of studies using real-time assessments of affect and job satisfaction (e.g., Illies & Judge, 2002; Weiss,
Nicholas, & Dauss, 1999) have highlighted the dual affective and cognitive components of job satisfaction
and more recent discussions of the nature of job satisfaction (e.g., Brief, 1998; Dalal & Credé, 2013; Judge,
Hulin, & Dalal, 2012) have similarly returned to classical definitions of attitudes (e.g., Thurstone, 1928) and
acknowledged the joint cognitive and affective aspects of job satisfaction.

INVOLVEMENT

The literature on job involvement is based on findings that individuals can exhibit substantial ego involvement
in their approach to work even when the work is artificial and short-lived (e.g., Lewis, 1944). Lodahl
and Kejner’s (1965) seminal paper on job involvement described two components of the construct. Job
involvement was described both as ‘the degree to which a person is identified psychologically with his work,
or the importance of his work in his total self-image’ (p. 24) and as ‘… the degree to which a person’s work
performance affects his [sic] self-esteem’. This initial description is problematic because it appears to describe
two somewhat dissimilar ideas – the importance of one’s job to self-image and the degree to which self-worth
is raised or lowered by variations in job performance – without a formal acknowledgment that the construct is
multidimensional, and also because it appears to be somewhat confounded with definitions of work centrality
(see Brown, 1996; Diefendorff, Brown, Kamin, & Lord, 2002; Paullay, Alliger, & Stone-Romero, 1994). A
clearer definition appears to be that of Paullay et al. for whom job involvement is ‘… the degree to which one
is cognitively preoccupied with, engaged in, and concerned with one’s present job’ (p. 225). This definition of
job involvement more clearly distinguishes it from work centrality – as well as the other two attitude constructs
discussed in this chapter – but suggests substantial overlap with a recently popular attitudinal construct,
employee engagement (e.g., Macey & Schneider, 2008).

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

The concept of commitment has been applied to a variety of foci including unions (e.g., Barling, Wade,
& Fullager, 1990), a profession (e.g., Weng & McElroy, 2012) and supervisors (Lapointe, Vandenberghe,
& Boudrias, 2013), but by far the most frequently studied focus has been the organization. Early
conceptualizations of organizational commitment favored a unidimensional view of the construct (e.g., Becker,
1960) and focused primarily on the employee’s sense of attachment to and identification with the organization.
Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982) for example, defined organizational commitment as ‘the relative strength
of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization’ (p. 27). This unidimensional
approach to the study of commitment began to shift as researchers began to describe a variety of
multidimensional models. These multidimensional approaches included: 1) the distinction between value
commitment and commitment to stay (Angle & Perry, 1981), 2) compliance, identification, and internalization
(O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986), and 3) moral, calculative, and alienative commitment (Penley & Gould, 1988).
Most early researchers focused primarily on either attitudinal commitment as described by Mowday et al.,
or calculative commitment which acknowledged that employees can be bound to an organization by the
high cost associated with leaving the organization. Indeed, the 1990 meta-analytic review of the commitment
literature by Mathieu and Zajac focused only on these two types of commitment. Since 1990 organizational
commitment researchers have largely adopted Meyer and Allen’s Three-Component Model of Commitment

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(Allen & Meyer, 1990, 1996) which introduced a third type of commitment to mainstream organizational
research. The central insight of this model is that employees can become committed to an organization for a
variety of reasons and that these different types of commitment also have unique relationships to employee
behavior.

The Three-Component Model distinguishes between 1) affective commitment which represents employees’
identification with the organization, sense of belonging, and desire to see the goals of the organization
fulfilled, 2) normative commitment, based on work by Wiener (1982), which represents a sense of obligation
toward the organization, and 3) continuance commitment which largely replicates the calculative commitment
construct.

ANTECEDENTS AND DETERMINANTS OF JOB SATISFACTION, COMMITMENT, AND INVOLVEMENT

The literature on job attitudes is rich with theories and models that discuss how job attitudes develop. Much
of this theoretical literature focuses on job satisfaction but because job satisfaction is often viewed as a
proximal determinant of organizational commitment (e.g., Yoon & Thye, 2002) and an outcome of involvement
(e.g., Brown, 1996), these theoretical frameworks are also relevant for these other attitude constructs.
Collectively most theories and models of job attitude formation emphasize the role of objective situational
factors, dispositions, and/or the interaction between these two sets of factors, although the situational factors
and dispositional factors that constitute these models vary relatively widely.

THEORIES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND SITUATIONAL FACTORS

The Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) describes five objective characteristics of the job
that are positively related to job satisfaction, and how individual characteristics moderate these relationships.
These characteristics of the job are: 1) the variety of skills used on the job (skill variety), 2) the degree to which
employees complete a job from beginning to end (task identity), 3) the degree to which the job has a positive
impact on others (task significance), 4) the degree to which employees control the manner in which the job
is completed (autonomy), and 5) the degree to which the job provides employees with accurate and regular
feedback about their level of performance (feedback). A meta-analytic review of this literature (Fried & Ferris,
1987) found substantial support for the Job Characteristics Model with correlations between job satisfaction
and the five job characteristics ranging from ρ = .26 (for task identity) to ρ = .48 (for autonomy). Indeed,
a unit-weighted composite of the five job characteristics (job complexity) was found to correlate ρ = .74
with overall job satisfaction. A more recent theoretical extension of this work (and meta-analytic update), by
Humphrey, Nahrgang and Morgeson (2007) has identified nine additional job characteristics that also exhibit
relatively large relationships with job satisfaction. The largest of the observed effects for these additional
characteristics are: task variety (ρ with job satisfaction = .46), information processing requirements (ρ = .38),
interdependence (ρ = .33), feedback from others (ρ = .42), and social support (ρ = .56).

Job characteristics have also been linked to job involvement; more interesting and challenging work being
thought to increase employees’ interest in and involvement with their jobs. Empirical evidence is supportive of
this assertion with the observed meta-analytic relationships between job characteristics and job involvement
ranging from ρ = .21 for task identity to ρ = .47 for job challenge (Brown, 1996). The literature linking
job characteristics to organizational commitment is sparser, although individual studies (e.g., Elanain, 2009;
Joo & Lim, 2009; Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000) have reported that job characteristics are related to
organizational commitment in a relatively similar manner.

According to the Job Characteristics Model the effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction (and other
outcomes) is further moderated by a variety of individual difference characteristics. Because the five job
characteristics are jointly associated with job complexity the positive impact on job satisfaction is thought
to be most pronounced when employees are: 1) high on a desire to learn, achieve, and grow on the job
(Growth Need Strength), 2) highly skilled and knowledgeable, so that the complex nature of the job can
be satisfying, and 3) highly satisfied with other facets of the job (e.g., coworkers, pay, supervisor, benefits).
The hypothesized moderating role of these individual difference characteristics has found only mixed support
(e.g., de Jong, van der Velde, & Jansen, 2001; Kemp & Cook, 1983; Loher, Noe, Moeller, & Fitzgerald, 1985),

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although recent work (Zargar, Vandenberghe, Marchand, & Ayed, 2014) has shown that the moderating role
of Growth Need Strategy can also be extended to the impact of job characteristics on commitment.

Whereas the Job Characteristics Model hypothesizes a main effect of objective job characteristics on job
situation, a relatively large number of other theories and models focus in some way on the discrepancy
between what the job provides and what the employee perceives should be provided as an influence on job
attitudes. Collectively these have been referred to as Need-Satisfaction Models (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978) or
as manifestation of ler’s Discrepancy Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).

The Cornell Model (Hulin, Roznowski, & Hachiya, 1985) focuses on the interplay between relatively objective
characteristics of the job and individual differences. Specifically, the Cornell Model posits that job satisfaction
is influenced by the perceived balance or discrepancy between job inputs (e.g., skills, time, ability, effort) and
job outputs (e.g., salary, promotions, job security, recognition) and that the effect of these perceived inputs
and outputs on job satisfaction is influenced by employees’ frame of reference that influence how inputs and
outputs are viewed. For example, during times of high unemployment employees are predicted to be less
critical of the characteristics of their jobs and therefore be more satisfied. This claim has found some support
(e.g., Hulin, 1966; Miller, Katerberg, & Hulin, 1979) but findings from others (e.g., Williams, 1999) have been
less supportive. Williams found that the job satisfaction of salespeople spread across 25 states and 66 cities
was unrelated to unemployment at the state level, city level, or even the unemployment rate of salespeople
with the state.

Locke’s Value-Percept Model (Locke, 1976) hypothesizes a somewhat different mechanism involving the
characteristics of the job and individual differences; employees’ satisfaction with a job facet is a function of
the discrepancy between how much of that facet is desired and how much is provided by the job. These
different facet satisfactions are then combined to determine overall job satisfaction by using a weighting
system that reflects the value or importance given to each aspect of the job. Thus an employee’s substantial
dissatisfaction with any one aspect of the job (e.g., coworkers) may have little impact on the level of overall
job satisfaction if the employee does not value satisfaction with coworkers very highly. Alternatively, even
small differences between the desired level of a job characteristic (e.g., pay, autonomy) and the actual level of
that job characteristic can have a dramatic impact on overall job satisfaction if that job characteristic is highly
valued. The validity of Locke’s model has proven difficult to assess because of the now well-known difficulties
of working with difference scores involving components measured with imperfect reliability (see Edwards,
1994), but those who have examined this issue have generally found support for the framework (e.g., Rice,
Gentile, & McFarlin, 1991; Rice, Markus, Moyer, & McFarlin, 1991).

Individual differences and discrepancy concepts are also central to the Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawes,
England, & Lofquist, 1964) which has garnered some recent support (e.g., Dierdorff & Morgeson, 2013). Here
satisfaction is determined by the discrepancy between six different values held by employees (achievement,
comfort, status, altruism, safety, autonomy), and the degree to which these values are satisfied by the rewards
offered by the job or by the nature of the job.

Thibaut and Kelley’s Social Comparison Level Model (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) also relies on discrepancy
concepts by describing how an individual’s satisfaction with being a member of a group, or dyad is determined
by a comparison of the outputs received as a member of that group or dyad to a standard that is derived
from past membership (real or observed) in other groups or dyads. Outputs that exceed this standard are
hypothesized to result in satisfaction while outputs that are less than the standard are hypothesized to result
in dissatisfaction.

Theories of Social Influences

The growing literature on job attitude climate (e.g., Cambre, Kippers, van Veldhoven, & de Witte, 2012)
illustrates that job attitudes are often highly similar among employees within a team, department, or
organization. One reason for this is, of course, that such employees often do very similar work and operate
within very similar job settings. The rude and incompetent supervisor who lowers the commitment or
satisfaction of one employee likely also has a similar effect on other employees. Theories of social influence
provide another reason for similar job attitude levels among members of a work unit. Salancik and Pfeffer

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(1978), for example, argue that employees arrive at judgment about seemingly objective work characteristics
by interacting with others. Similarly, the weight given to work characteristics and work events is also informed
by the social environment, particularly coworkers. If coworkers all agree that a supervisor is incompetent or
that the degree of autonomy is too low and that these characteristics are important then the attitude of a
new employee with regard to these two job features will be shaped by this judgment of his or her coworkers.
Illustrations of emotional contagion in organizational settings (e.g., Dasborough, Ashkanasy, Tee, & Tse,
2009), are also supportive of the role of social influences on attitudes in work settings.

Dispositional Approaches

Although dispositional sources of job attitudes have long been acknowledged (e.g., Weitz, 1952), most early
theoretical frameworks positioned individual differences primarily as moderators of the impact of situational
characteristics on job attitudes. More recently authors have increasingly acknowledged the substantial main
effect of dispositions on job attitudes and have also attempted to better articulate their moderating role.
This focus on dispositions, primarily personality, was in part the result of studies that reported possible
genetic determinants of job satisfaction (Arvey, Bouchard, Segal, & Abraham, 1989), relatively high stability
in job satisfaction across time even when individuals changed jobs (Staw & Ross, 1985; Steel & Rentsch,
1997), and that dispositions assessed during early adolescence could predict job satisfaction over 40 years
later (Staw, Bell, & Clausen, 1986). Although these studies were not without critics (e.g., Gutek & Winter,
1992) they did result in an increasing number of researchers investigating the dispositional correlates of job
satisfaction.

Trait affectivity, typically conceptualized as positive affect and negative affect (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988), has proven perhaps to be most predictive of all dispositions. Judge and Hulin (1993) for example,
illustrated that affective disposition, defined as the general manner in which one’s environment is interpreted,
strongly influences subjective well-being which, in turn, influences job satisfaction. As such ‘job satisfaction is
determined to a significant extent by the individual’s general level of happiness and his or her way of looking at
the world’ (Judge & Hulin, 1993, p. 413). More recently, a meta-analytic review by Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky,
de Chermont and Warren (2003) reported estimates of the correlation of job satisfaction with positive affect
and negative affect as ρ = .34, and ρ = –.34, while the relationship of organizational commitment with positive
affect and negative affect were ρ = .35 and ρ = –.27 respectively. Core self-evaluations have also exhibited
strong correlations with job satisfaction (e.g., Judge, Bono, & Locke, 2000; Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger,
1998), but the relationship of job attitudes with other traits such as the Big Five personality traits have been
less strong (see Judge, Heller, & Mount, 2002; Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012).

Theoretical explanations for the strong relationships between trait affect and job attitudes have assigned
main, moderating, and mediating effects to trait affect and related dispositions. Forgas and George’s (2001)
Affect Infusion Model proposes that trait affect acts as a lens through which the attitude object (in this case the
job) is viewed. That is, those high on positive affect have a general tendency to view the job and its various
facets in positive terms while those high on negative affect would have a tendency to view the characteristics
of the job in negative terms. Because of the relative independence of positive affect and negative affect these
two effects would presumably combine in an additive fashion.

Judge and Larsen (2001) describe a different role for trait affectivity and related Big Five traits (i.e.,
extraversion and neuroticism). First, these dispositions may reflect differences in how sensitive individuals are
to environmental stimuli. Extroverts and those high on trait positive affect are likely to respond more favorably
to rewards and job challenges while those high on neuroticism and trait negative affect would respond
more strongly to punishment and negative workplace characteristics and events. Second, trait affectivity and
personality are hypothesized to influence: 1) what individuals attend to and how individuals remember and
process organizational events, 2) the kind of situations that individuals seek out, 3) how individuals impact the
situations that they find themselves in, and 4) how individuals regulate their mood state. In support Judge and
Larsen present evidence that extraverts are more attentive to positive stimuli than negative stimuli and are
more likely than introverts to seek out jobs and tasks requiring social interaction, while those high on positive
affectivity tend to seek out approach goals as opposed to individuals high on negative affect who are more
likely to pursue avoidance goals.

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The literature on job involvement has focused on one additional causal dispositional. This variable termed
work ethic endorsement (or sometimes Protestant work ethic, e.g., Elloy & Terpening, 1992), reflects a
stable positive orientation to work irrespective of its objective characteristics and is thought to result from
socialization experiences that stress the importance and value of work and correlate strongly with job
involvement (ρ = .45; Brown, 1996).

The Role of Workplace Events

Affective Events Theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) acknowledges the influence of objective work
characteristics and dispositions on job attitude formation but also integrates the role of workplace events.
Specifically, workplace events such as interactions with coworkers or customers interact with trait dispositions
to determine affective reactions. These affective reactions influence affect-driven behavior (e.g., anger toward
a coworker leading to spreading rumors about that coworker) and, over time, also influence the cognitive
component of job attitudes. For example, a single instance of a coworker being rude is likely to shift the short-
term affective reaction to the coworker suggesting that the affective component of job satisfaction exhibits
substantial within-person variability. At the same time a single negative interaction is unlikely to result in
a permanent change in an employee’s judgment about the favorability of his or her coworkers. Repeated
negative interpersonal interactions with coworkers on the other hand are likely to shift the evaluation in
a negative direction. A growing literature has found support for the core assertions of AET – not only for
job satisfaction (e.g., Illies & Judge, 2002; Mignonac & Herrbach, 2004) but also other attitudes such as
commitment (e.g., Becker, Ulrich, & van Dick, 2013). Indirect support also comes from the extensive literature
linking specific workplace events to job attitudes. Perhaps because the impact of negative events on mood is
up to five times as large as the impact of positive events (Miner, Glomb, & Hulin, 2005), much of this work has
focused on negative workplace events such as sexual harassment (Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, &
Magley, 1997) and bullying (Rodriguez-Munoz, Baillien, De Witte, Moreno-Jiminez, & Pastor, 2009), although
events outside of work such as marital conflict also have an impact (Sandberg et al., 2013).

CONSEQUENCES OF JOB SATISFACTION, COMMITMENT, AND INVOLVEMENT

A number of theoretical frameworks address the expected relationships between job attitudes and behaviors
on the job. At the most fundamental level is the core assumption of attitude theory that attitudes are related
to attitude congruent behaviors (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) – or at least to behavioral intentions (e.g., Theory of
Planned Behavior, Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). Favorable evaluations of the job or some facet of the job should
therefore result in favorable behaviors toward the job or facet. Attitude–behavior relationships are strongest
when the …