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JOB SATISFACTION – A LITERATURE REVIEW ON EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION, ATTITUDES

AND TURNOVER: WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP?

Research · August 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1583.2800

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JOB SATISFACTION – A LITERATURE REVIEW ON EMPLOYEE

MOTIVATION, ATTITUDES AND TURNOVER: WHAT IS THE

RELATIONSHIP?

Human Resource Management

Edith Wakida

Dr. Wendell Lawther (Instructor PAD 6417)

University of Central Florida

Summer 2014
 Job satisfaction is the extent to which one is happy with their job hence an employee’s

willingness to perform at an optimum level (Hoffman-Miller 2013). Aziri 2011, states that there

is no agreed upon definition of what job satisfaction is or what it represents; but there is need to

consider the nature and importance of the work. The article presents some definitions from

different authors describing job satisfaction as “Positive and favorable attitudes towards the job

indicate job satisfaction (Armstrong, 2006)”; “…collection of feeling and beliefs that people

have about their current job (George et al., 2008)”, while Ravari et al 2011 look at job

satisfaction as a multi-dimensional1 concept. Generally the comparison of all the authors above

points towards employees’ positive or negative attitudes towards their jobs.

“Job satisfaction focuses on three components of organizational behavior: that is

cognitive, affective, and behavioral and is widely used to determine overall satisfaction in human

capital management” (Hoffman-Miller, 2013). A number of factors influence job satisfaction and

they change over time; the fluctuation could be attributed to changes within the workplace as

well as economic, demographic and social trends (SHRM, 2012).

This literature review paper look at job satisfaction under three sub-themes: motivation,

attitudes and turnover in relation to cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects.

Motivating employees and keeping them satisfied are some of the ways that managers and

organizations retain employees and provide excellent service. Effectively motivating employees

1
An individual job satisfaction varies in time and space, between countries and geographical regions or
between units in the same departments. What may be job dissatisfaction for an employee in a
developed country may actually be a job satisfaction for somebody from a developing or least
developed country. Within the same individual, there may be job satisfaction at a certain time and the
next time, there is dissatisfaction.

1
requires an understanding of the different types of motivation2 so as to apply the appropriate type

since different people respond differently. The types are intrinsic3 and extrinsic4 motivation.

Sub theme employee attitude5 which will be looked at in three ways; cognitive6,

affective7 and behavioral8. Attitudes have characteristic like persistence unless something is done

to change; they fall range from very favorable to very unfavorable and attitudes are directed

toward some object about which a person has feelings (affect) and beliefs.

Lastly the paper looks at employee turnover9 which involves employees leaving an

organization over a given period of time. This is classified into voluntary10 and involuntary11

turnover.

Sub-theme 1: Employee Motivation

“Motivating employees and keeping them satisfied are some of the ways that managers

and organizations retain employees and provide excellent service” (DiPietro et al 2014). This

2
The reason(s) someone works at a particular job and for a particular organization.
3
Means "from within" the employee individual has the desire to perform a specific task, because its
results are in accordance with their belief system or fulfills a desire and therefore importance is
attached to it
4
Motivation comes from outside. These people believe that difficult tasks can be dealt with provided
there is a reward upon completion of that task.
5
How one looks at something
6
The opinion or belief that one has; it involves evaluation of whatever goes on at work-whether one
deserves something or not
7
Emotional or feelings-this describes what the employee feels at any particular time; sometimes they
may feel sidelined or favored above others. These feelings can be subjective in most cases.
8
Intention to behave in a certain way towards someone or something-the action taken by the employee
especially if they feel no body is caring about their issue.
9
Changes in the work force resulting from voluntary or involuntary resignations; this can be the number
or percentage of employees leaving an organization and being replaced with new ones.
10
Voluntary turnover is when the employee chooses to leave for whatever reason.
11
Involuntary turnover is caused by layoffs and similar actions where the decision for an employee to
leave is made by the company and not the employee.

2
author is in agreement with Nohria et al 2008 who state that the most enduring and slippery

challenge managers have is getting people to do their best work, even in trying circumstances.

According to Thahier et al. (2014), motivating employees is very important because

motivation of every individual is his willingness to unreservedly work hard for high productivity;

meaning the employee is willing to use all the abilities that he has for the sake of his organization

by utilizing the available opportunities to accomplish his organization’s mission. They further

quote McClelland on need for achievement12, need for power13 and need for affiliation14 as

motivators for achievement and satisfaction. On the contrary, according to Nohria et al 2008, the

things that influence choices and underlie everything we do are the drives to acquire both

tangible and intangible things; the need to bond with others; comprehend15; and defend or protect

against external threats and promote justice.

DiPietro et al (2014) in their article state that employees are motivated by intrinsic16 and

extrinsic factors which are driven by the interest or enjoyment of the task (intrinsic) and things

that come from outside the individual, such as money or rewards (extrinsic). This is similar to

12
The need for achievement is the driving force that motivates the spirit of one's work. Therefore, the
need for achievement would encourage someone to develop creativity and skills as well as direct all its
energy in order to achieve optimal performance.
13
The need for power is the desire to have impact, influence, and to control others. Individuals with a
high need for power enjoy to be burdened, struggle to be able to influence others, prefer to be placed in
a competitive situation and status -oriented, and tend to be more concerned about the prestige and to
gain influence over others with effective performance.
14
People who have a basic desire to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships are important,
positive, and lasting.
15
Satisfy our curiosity and master the world around us. Usually, when one feels like they are in charge,
then they feel motivated to do what they ought to do. If all the necessary information is availed to the
employees, then most likely they will be motivated to understand what it is all about so that they are at
a cutting edge perhaps over the others. The challenge here through is that they may under look the
supervisors especially when they feel like they are on top of the game.
16
Intrinsic motivation is distinctive in that employees are motivated without external rewards or
recognition, and it works as the most powerful driver of employee attitudes and performance.

3
Cho & Perry (2012) who say that individuals are intrinsically motivated when they seek

enjoyment, but add on interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in

the work while extrinsically motivated when they engage in activities to obtain a goal that is

separate from the work itself.

Motivation or employee rewards come in various forms such as improving working

conditions, providing opportunities for growth, and recognizing employee accomplishments or

remuneration, however, using intrinsic motivators like providing a sense of belonging for the

employee and recognition of a job well done goes a long way in making them excited about their

jobs. Similarly, job enrichment17, empowerment and sharing power help some employees feel

motivated at work (Honore, 2009, DiPietro et al 2014).

There are influencing conditions in order to have intrinsic and extrinsic effects of

motivation. Cho & Perry (2012) present two situational variables-managerial trustworthiness and

goal preparedness as the influencing factors for intrinsic effects while an individual attribute to

extrinsic reward expectancy. They further suggest that “Managerial trustworthiness18 and goal

directedness19 increase the leverage of intrinsic motivation on employee satisfaction, whereas

extrinsic rewards expectancy decreases the leverage”.

With trustworthiness comes motivation for the employees as they will have high expectations of

learning from their supervisor. Having trustworthy supervisors helps employees direct their

17
Providing the employee with more responsibilities to help boost their confidence-this creates a feeling of trust
within the worker thus propelling self-confidence high job performance.
18
This includes elements like competence, consistency, fairness, integrity, loyalty, openness, receptivity,
and benevolence. If supervisors do not have these elements, it becomes difficult for the employees to
trust or respect them.
19
Goal preparedness is taken to mean having set goals and performance targets. This is believed to increase
motivation because it is clear to the employees the direction they are taking and what is required of them so they
will work towards attaining the goals.

4
efforts toward their task performance without worrying about interruptions from supervisors or

conflicts with them. (DiPietro et al 2014).

Extrinsic motivation comes about when an activity is done in order to attain some

separable outcome, one does not necessarily enjoy doing the task but because there is an

outcome they want to achieve, they will be motivated to do it. However, as extrinsic motivation

rises, intrinsic motivation decreases because the person starts to only look for external rewards

instead of working on something for personal satisfaction (Burton, 2012).

Sub-theme 2: Employee Attitude

According to Saari & Judge (2004) employees have attitudes20 or viewpoints about

different aspects of their jobs, their careers, and their organizations. They are composed of

emotion, thought and behaviors. This is similar to what Man et al (2011) suggest and they go

ahead to define emotion as an individual being positive, negative or neutral about something;

they look at thought as knowledge towards things while behavior is considered the action taken

after emotions and knowledge.

Edgar & Geare (2013) use job satisfaction and affective commitment to measure

employee satisfaction. They look at job satisfaction as the attitude of workers towards the

organization, their job, fellow workers and other psychological objects of the work environment.

Attitude has three components which are cognitive, affective and behavioral in nature but

there are also functions for attitude: there is the adjustment function which assists the employee

20
Attitude describes the way one feels inside. These are his feelings toward you, coworkers and position within the
company. Every employee has an attitude towards the environment -- either good or bad. Attitude ties in very well
with employee motivation, when the one does not feel motivated to work, most likely there will be negative
attitudes towards work leading to low performance.

5
to reposition to their work environment, ego-defensive21 function, value-defensive22 function and

knowledge23 function. According to Saari & Judge (2004), there are causes of attitude change

which have not yet been understood by practitioners, these include; dispositional24 influences,

cultural25 influences and work situation26 influences. There is a suggestion that the four cross-

cultural dimensional causes of attitude change are: “(1) individualism-collectivism; (2)

uncertainty avoidance versus risk taking; (3) power distance, or the extent to which power is

unequally distributed; and (4) masculinity/femininity, more recently called achievement

orientation”. Lastly, the nature of work and attitude is very important; employers think that

employees are more interested in the pay they get thus attitude change, however, job challenge27,

autonomy, variety, and scope—best predicts overall job satisfaction, as well as other important

outcomes like employee retention.

21
Ego defensive function helps employees to retain their dignity and self-image. Egos however cause
attitude conflicts within employees, one may feel right about something while another opposes. Usually
there is need for one to concede defeat which is not very easy or accepted due to the ego stint.
22
Attitudes provide individuals with a basis for expressing their values. Not all employees share the
same values so each one may want to defend what they believe in-in this way, there is bound to have all
sorts of attitudes within the employees depending on what they believe in.
23
Attitudes provide standards and frames of reference that allow people to understand and perceive
the world around him.
24
Disposition is something to do with temperaments or personality. If during selection of employees a
personality is not well matched with the job requirements, then there is likely to be an attitude problem
with that employee. It is however challenging to correctly judge one’s temperament during employee
selection, so there are likely to be attitude problems especially if ‘wrong’ people were selected for a
particular job in that aspect. There is a link between a person’s personality and job satisfaction. Negative
people are usually not satisfied with their jobs.
25
Cultural influences have to do with where the employee is from (culture or Country). It is quite
common that some countries feel more superior to others so if an employee comes from a country
considered inferior, even though they have the qualifications for a position, they may not be given
because of the bias that they might possibly be incompetent for the position. Such an employee may be
given a lower position than deserved so this is likely to affect their attitude from the onset.
26
Jobs with good compensation have average job satisfaction levels. Money may be a motivator, but
may not stimulate job satisfaction.
27
Most people prefer work that is challenging and stimulating. This helps them to learn more and avoid
boredom at work-breaking routine.

6
 According to Edgar & Geare (2013), employee reactions are a behaviorally oriented

response to employee attitudes, this can be seen when the employee acts above and beyond the

normal duty. Satisfied employees who feel fairly treated by and are trusting of the organization

are more willing to engage in behaviors that go beyond the normal expectations of their job.

Sub-theme 3: Employee Turnover

According to Bridger et al. (2013) employee turnover starts with an intention28; while

Hwang et al. (2013) adds that perceived job stress has significant negative relationships with job

satisfaction and significant positive relationships with turnover intention. Turnover intention is

caused by occupational stress; according to Bridger et al. (2013) and Hwang (2013) “high level

of turnover intention could be attributed to occupational stresses”. Occupational stresses

highlighted by Bridger et al. (2013) are physical and psycho-social job demands; role in the

organization; relationships at work; career development and organizational climate. Some of the

organization stress symptoms witnessed are high absenteeism, high staff turnover, poor morale,

reduced safety, and reduced operational capability. Hwang et al 2014 suggests the need to

enhance29 working conditions to improve job performance and convince employees not to leave

their job.

There are two types of employee turnover in organizations; voluntary and involuntary

turnover. Voluntary turnover is influenced by factors internal30 to the employee that influence a

28
Turnover intention is “the last in a sequence of withdrawal cognitions, a set to which thinking of quitting and
intent to search for alternative employment also belong.”
29
In order to enhance, the employer may have to carry out a study to know what exactly the employees are
lacking and relevantly address them. These usually vary, some employees need accommodation improvement,
others need remuneration, others need health insurance so depending on the need, the employer needs to be
sensitive while attempting to enhance working conditions.
30
Employees sometimes take on jobs with certain expectations but do not get what they expect, they may not be
comfortable with the supervisor or fail to fit in the work environment (peer challenge); this is likely to cause
internal conflict within the employee thus causing him/her to contemplate quitting.

7
certain behavior and decision-these are referred to as push factor whereas there are pull factors

like job opportunities in the market attracting the employee to go (Wocke and Heymann, 2012).

According to Self & Dewald (2011) the causes attracting employees turnover are higher pay31,

better work schedules, enhanced benefits offered in other fields and relationships with

supervisors for leaving. On the other hand, involuntary turnover is deliberately done by

organizations to retain high performers and to weed out lower performers.

Age, gender and education play a major role in turnover. The age32 of employees plays an

important part in employee commitment, being rooted in the job, psychological contract and the

decision to leave (Wocke and Heymann, 2012).

Employee turnover is detrimental to organizations as it involves a high social cost and

destroys firm-specific capital. With employee turnover, the ability to achieve an optimal level of

productivity is a major hurdle faced by companies Chang et al. (2011). Discovering why

employees stay33 could enable management to use this information to instill this in other

employees (Self & Dewald 2011).

31
Higher pay however may not be an absolute to contributor to employee retention although it plays a significant
role. Depending on the location of the employment-disease /was stricken area, security, safety, available facilities,
a high paying job may not attract employees to stay.
32
It is generally assumed that older employees are likely to be committed to their jobs than the younger ones. This
is because their needs and pursuits are different. When recruiting employees, it is therefore important that a
mixture of age groups is brought on board; each age group has something to offer to the organization but for
sustainability or continuity, having older people is helpful especially in mentoring the younger ones into staying
focused.
33
Different employees take on jobs and have motivators for working in those positions. Employers interacting with
the employees especially the ones who have stayed longer in the same job would be very informative as
management would actually get to know reasons that have kept the workers around and perhaps work harder at
retaining them more but also use them as reference points and mentors for the new hires. Conducting
commitment interviews also may help in further reducing turnover by singling out employees that enhance their
feelings of self-worth and trust by management found that identifying characteristics associated with employee’s
willingness to stay in a job could be used as predictors of job tenure.

8
 Conclusion

Conclusively, motivating employees for better job satisfaction and performance is very

crucial for managers; they need to understand the types of existing motivations and know the

nature or personality of their employees and what makes them motivated so that they

appropriately motivate them. This will go a long way in helping retain high performers in the

organization as there will be satisfaction. Under high levels of trustworthiness, the leverage of

intrinsic motivation on satisfaction becomes stronger. Using extrinsic motivation by managers

also works as it pushes the employees to do what they would have not otherwise done; however

this motivation type is not very good because if there is high extrinsic expectancy, then intrinsic

motivation reduces and yet the target should be towards getting the employee to enjoy what they

are doing on the job.

Employee attitude is closely related to motivation; if the employee does not feel

motivated on the job, this affects how he/she feels about what they do, the job environment, the

organizational management and thus the ultimate outcome. On the other hand, when they are

motivated or are satisfied on their jobs, then high performance can be seen as there will be self-

drive to perform above the normal job expectations.

Management keeping in touch with the employees is very important especially if they are

to prevent, reduce or overcome the challenge of employee turnover. It may not be very helpful

finding out from the employees who have left the why they have left; instead, if managers

discovered why employees stay could enable management to use this information to instill this in

other employees.

9
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