The importance of attitude.

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Organisational Behaviour assignment                I-Chun Chang

Introduction

The concept of attitude, although variously defined, is most commonly employed to designate inferred dispositions, attributed to an individual, according to which his thought, feeling, and perhaps action tendencies are organized with respect to a psychological object. Attitudes have three main components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The cognitive component concerns one's beliefs; the affective component involves feelings and evaluations; and the behavioral component consists of ways of acting toward the attitude object. The cognitive aspects of attitude are generally measured by surveys, interviews, and other reporting methods, while the affective components are more easily assessed by monitoring physiological signs such as heart rate. Behavior, on the other hand, may be assessed by direct observation. Not much more than a hundred years ago the term ‘attitude’ was used exclusively with reference to a person’s posture. To describe someone as adopting a threatening attitude or defiant attitude was to refer to his physical mien. True, the word can still be used in this manner. But nowadays attitude increasingly connotes the psychological rather than the immediately physical orientation of a person, his mental state rather than his bodily stance (Fleming, 1967). Few, in any, organizational scientists disagree that attitudes play a central role in the discipline. Mere mention of the attitude concept evokes in the minds of most the study of job satisfaction. Often accompanying this cognitive representation of research on attitudes in the organizational sciences is a yawn or some other behavior manifestation of boredom. This less than enthusiastic reaction is understandable (Arthur, 1998).The purpose of this essay is to examine the importance of the attitude within an organisation as well as to describe how attitude influence an organisation.

The importance of attitude

Employee work attitudes are a function of actual human resource programs, mediated by perceptions of organizational commitment to human resource efforts. Attitudes toward company values and job satisfaction are best predicted by this model, whereas attitudes toward general supervision, pride in working for the company, communication from the human resources department, and self-rated motivation are predicted very well. Human resource activities have the increased benefit of having a positive impact on employee attitudes. Although this is a valuable outcome, this increased benefit may be evaluated in terms of its secondary impact on the financial performance of the organization, to the extent that improved attitudes positively affect job performance and other work-related outcomes (Cascio, 1982). Moreover, there are some reasons why the relationship between generalized employee attitudes and perceptions of the organization's commitment to human resources is of interest.

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First, employee attitudes are a widely researched topic. Employee attitudes, of which job satisfaction is just one, are an important component in the current personnel psychology and management literatures. Information regarding significant correlates of satisfaction and other employee attitudes thus will help academicians and practitioners gain a more complete understanding of the work situation. Second, employee attitudes are one component of organizational effectiveness (Kanter & Brinkerhoff, 1981). Although organizational effectiveness has been operationalised in numerous ways, employee attitudes play a key role in many conceptualizations of effectiveness. It thus is important to determine whether employee attitudes are related to perceptions ...

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