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

• Main Authors: Schleicher, Deidra J., Smith, Troy A., Casper, Wendy J., Watt, John D., GREGURAS, Gary J.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: Emotional Regulation; Employee Characteristics; Fatigue; Job Satisfaction; emotional labor; surface acting; deep acting; latent profile analysis; employee well-being; attitude strength; OCB; performance; Human Resources Management; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/4375; https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038664
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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.