It’s All in the Attitude: The Role of Job Attitude Strength in Job Attitude-Outcome Relationships

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

7-2015

Abstract

Integrating attitude theory with the job attitudes literature, we position job attitude strength (JAS) as a missing yet important theoretical concept in the study of job attitudes. We examine JAS as a moderator of the relationship between job satisfaction and several criteria of interest to organizational scholars (job performance, organizational citizenship behavior, withdrawal). We also examine multiple relevant indicators of JAS (i.e., attitude certainty, attitude extremity, latitude of rejection, and structural consistency), both to shed light on its conceptual nature and to provide meaningful practical direction to researchers interested in incorporating JAS into job attitude research. Data were collected in five field samples (total N = 816). Results support our hypotheses: JAS moderates the relationships between job satisfaction and performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intentions; in each case, these relationships are significantly stronger for employees with stronger job satisfaction attitudes. However, as expected, not all JAS indicators are equally effective as moderators. We discuss our findings in terms of their theoretical, empirical, and practical implications for the future study of job attitudes.

Keywords

Emotional Regulation, Employee Characteristics, Fatigue, Job Satisfaction, emotional labor, surface acting, deep acting, latent profile analysis, employee well-being, attitude strength, OCB, performance

Discipline

Human Resources Management | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Journal of Applied Psychology

Volume

100

Issue

4

First Page

1259

Last Page

1274

ISSN

0021-9010

Identifier

10.1037/a0038664

Publisher

American Psychological Association

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038664

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