Satisfaction at work: attitudes to work

Psychology A2 · Organisational Psychology. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Workplace sabotage is deliberate behaviour by an employee that damages the organisation: its property, its production or its reputation. It is intended, so an accident is not sabotage. Reasons include revenge for unfair treatment, frustration, boredom and a wish to gain some control over the work.

Giacalone and Rosenfeld (1987) asked unionised factory workers in the USA to rate how justified different sabotage methods and reasons were.

Absence is another sign of attitude. Blau and Boal predict it from two things: job involvement (how much a person identifies with the job) and organisational commitment (how much he or she identifies with the organisation). Each can be high or low, giving four types of employee.

Rules to remember

Giacalone and Rosenfeld's method groups: work slowdowns, destruction (of machinery, premises or products), dishonesty, causing chaos.
Their result: workers who accepted more reasons for sabotage rated slowdowns, destruction and causing chaos as more justified; dishonesty showed no such difference.
Self-reports on sabotage risk under-reporting, so anonymity is essential.
Voluntary absence: the worker chooses not to attend. Involuntary absence: beyond the worker's control, e.g. illness.
High involvement, high commitment: institutionalised stars; mainly medical absence.
High involvement, low commitment: lone wolves; career-enhancing absence. Low involvement, high commitment: corporate citizens; normative absence.
Low involvement, low commitment: apathetic employees; calculative absence, the highest absence and turnover.

Common mistake

Students swap lone wolves and corporate citizens. Lone wolves care about the job but not the organisation. Corporate citizens care about the organisation but not much about the job itself.

Worked example

A research chemist loves her experiments and works late on them, but has no loyalty to the company and takes days off to attend interviews at rival firms. How would Blau and Boal classify her, and what type of absence is this?

She identifies strongly with her work, so job involvement is high.
She feels no loyalty to the company, so organisational commitment is low.
High involvement with low commitment is the lone wolf, whose absences serve personal career goals.

Answer: A lone wolf, showing career-enhancing absence.

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