Feelings About Work

• Job satisfaction: Attitude about the job reflecting

like/dislike for it and various facets.
• Organizational commitment: Attachment
to the job.
• Extent to which an employee
identifies with and is involved with an
organization
• Affective, Continuance & Normative
 Nature of Job Satisfaction

• Global approach: Overall satisfaction with work

• Facet approach: Satisfaction with aspects of the job
– Pay
– Promotion
– Supervision
– Nature of work
• Most people like the job overall
• Facet satisfactions vary
– Highest: Nature of work
– Lowest: Pay and Promotion opportunities
 Other factors
• Enjoy working with supervisors & coworkers?
• Are coworkers Unhappy? Social information processing theory (social learning
theory) – think culture
• Equity theory
– Practicality (e.g., controls- salary, hours worked)
– Perceptions – try to inform them with facts
– Can’t control policies of other organizations
– Justice
– Job rotation
– Job enlargement (knowledge or task)
– Job enrichment (job characteristics theory) – VISAF
– Self-directed teams or Quality circles
– Good fit with the organization?
– Needs/Supplies Fit: Salary rewards benefits consistent with efforts and
performance
– Person: values, interests, personality, lifestyle, skills
– Organization: vocation, job, organization, coworkers, supervisor
• tasks enjoyable
– More satisfied if work is interesting
4
 Measures of job satisfaction
• The Job Descriptive Index (JDI) (Smith, Kendall & Hulin,
1969)

• Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, MSQ (Weiss et

al., 1967) – short version (20 items) - Measure JS in
20 facets
– 100 questions (5 items from each facet
• Job Satisfaction Survey, JSS (Spector, 1994) JSS is a 36
item questionaire
– Measures 9 facets of JS

• Faces Scales- measure overall job satisfaction with just one5

item which participants respond by choosing a face.
 Assessment

• Self-report survey
– Easy to use
– Can be anonymous
– Person best judge of own feelings
• Standard scales exist
– Job Descriptive Index (JDI) (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969)
• 5 facets of job satisfaction
n (pay, supervisor, coworkers, working conditions, etc.)
n job In General (JIG) oerall Job Satisfaction (Cammann,
Finchman, Jenkins, & Klesh, 1983)
• Three items measure global job satisfaction
 Multi-faceted nature of Job
Satisfaction

General
Job Satisfaction

Work Pay Promotion Supervision Coworker

Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction

11
 Effects of Job Satisfaction
• Job Performance
– Small correlation
– More evidence that performance causes satisfaction than reverse
• Turnover
– Dissatisfied people more likely to quit
– Moderated by labor market—people quit when they find another
job
• Absence
– Very small correlation—other factors more important
• Attitudinal variables
– job involvement, organizational commitment, frustration,
job tension, and feelings of anxiety.
 Increasing Job Satisfaction
• Hire “Satisfied” Employees
• Eliminate Dissatisfiers
• Express appreciation and provide proper feedback
• Increase opportunities to socialize
• Hold special events and friendly competitions
• Increase humor
• Have surprises
• Assign the right tasks to the right people

14
 Predictors of job satisfaction

There are three general approaches to ex-plaining the

development of job satisfaction:(1)job characteristics,
skill variety -- how many different skills do I need to perform
the job?
task significance -- what kind of an impact does my job have on
the lives or work of others?
task identity -- to what extent do I complete a “whole” piece of
work instead of a part?
Autonomy -- freedom and independence of action
feedback -- to what degree does my job provide
clear information about my effectiveness?
Changes in these five factors change the scope of a job --
its complexity and challenge
social information processing - s that employees develop attitudes such as
job satisfaction through processing information from the
social environment. This view is based largely on
Festinger's (1954)Social Comparison Theory, which states that people
often look to others to interpret and make sense of the environment.
According to this view, for example, anew employee who happened
to interact with other employees who were dissatisfied with their jobs
would also likely become dissatisfied.
• Attitude and social cues provided by others
• Leadership, organizational culture, teamwork
Dispositional approaches - he basic premise of the dispositional approach
to job satisfaction is that some employees have a tendency to be
satisfied(or dissatisfied) with their jobs, regardless of the nature of the job
or organization in which they work.
 Antecedents of Job Satisfaction:
Environmental
• Job characteristics
– Hackman & Oldham
– Characteristics  Psychological States  Job satisfaction
– Strong research support linking perceptions of characteristics to
job satisfaction
– Weak research support linking objective characteristics to job
satisfaction
• Pay
– Salary compared to people in same job more important than
different jobs
• Justice
– Distributive and Procedural related to global and facet satisfaction
 Occupational Level: the higher the status level the greater the
satisfaction
 Antecedents of Job Satisfaction:
Environmental
• Personality
– Negative affectivity (high NAs less satisfied)
– Locus of control (externals less satisfied)
– Emotional stability
– Self-esteem
– Self-efficacy
• Gender
• Age
– Curvilinear—satisfaction lowest age 26 to 31
• Culture and Ethnicity
– Few racial differences within the U.S.
– Western countries score higher than Asians
• Could be due to response styles rather than true feelings
 Antecedents of Job Satisfaction
•Environmental antecedents​ • Personal antecedents
•job characteristics​ – Personality
•role variables​ • negative affectivity
•role ambiguity​ • locus of control

•RoleconflictIntrarol – Gender
e conflict​ – Age
•extrarole conflic – Genetics
t​ – Cultural and ethnic
differences
•Work-family conflict​
•Pay​ • Person-job fit

21
 Organizational Commitment

• The attachment of the individual to the organization

– Mowday, Steers, Porter
– Acceptance of organization’s goals
– Willingness to work hard for the organization
– Desire to stay with the organization

• Three commitments
– Meyer and Allen
– Affective: Like the job
– Continuance: Need the job
– Normative: Feel obligated to stay on the job
 Measurement Organizational
Commitment
• Allen and Myer Survey (1990)
• Organizational Commitment Questionnaire
(OCQ; Mowday, Steers, and Porter, 1979)
• Organizational Commitment Scale (Balfour
& Wechsler, 1996)

“I felt like a part of the family at this

organization”
 Commitment and Other Variables

• Similar correlations as job satisfaction

• High commitment associated with
– High job scope
– High job satisfaction
– Low job stressors
• LEVEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
• Higher • Characterised by a strong acceptance of the organisation’s
values and willingness to exert efforts to remain with the organisation
(Reichers, 1985). • This level relate closely with affective dimension of
commitment, where individuals stay because they want to.
• Moderate • Characterised by a reasonable acceptance of organisational
goals and values as well as the willingness to exert effort to remain in
the organisation (Reichers, 1985). • The willingness to stay is an
attribution of a moral commitment associated with the normative
dimension of commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1997). The individuals
stay in the organisation because they should do so.
• Low • Characterised by a lack of neither acceptance of organisational
goals and values nor the willingness to exert effort to remain with the
organisation (Reichers, 1985). • Employee may stay because he or she
needs to stay as associated with the continuance dimension (Meyer &
Allen, 1997). Given an option they will leave the organisation
• Outcomes
• High performance Low turnover
Low absenteeism Supportive
organizatiomal climate
 Predictors

of commitment
• Personal characteristics are important factors in the development
of an individual’s level of organizational commitment. Mathieu
and Zajac (1990) have identified several personal
characteristics: Age Gender Education Perceived
competence Protestant work ethics
• Job attitudes also contribute to an individual’s level of
organizational commitment. Job satisfaction is the only attitude
variable studied more than organizational commitment. Job
satisfaction is “the degree to which people like their jobs” based
on “what they receive from working compared to what they
expect, want, or think they deserve” Individuals must be
satisfied with their jobs before they can become committed to
the organization, other studies report an inverse relationship—
that job satisfaction is an outcome of one’s level of
organizational commitment.
• Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is another
attitude-linked concept that has been studied with
organizational commitment. Robinson and Morrison
(1995, p.289) explain that OCB refers to “employee
behavior that is extra-role, that promotes organizational
effectiveness, and that is not explicitly recognized by an
organization’s reward system.” Research findings indicate
that there is a clear link between organizational
commitment and OCB (Morrison & Robinson 1997). It is
widely believed that organizations could not survive unless
employees were willing to occasionally engage in OCB.
• Job characteristics also influence the development of
organizational commitment. Job Level Job Skills
• Relationships with co-workers and supervisors also appear
to be related to organizational commitment. Group
cohesiveness refers to the forces that keep a group of
coworkers together. For group cohesiveness to occur,
members of the group must be committed to the group and
identify with the organization. Thus, group cohesiveness
may be a prerequisite for organizational commitment
• Predictors
• If one considers affective commitment, a prediction might
be that employees will tend to develop this type of
commitment if they perceive that the organization is being
supportive and/or treating them in a fair manner (Meyer &
Allen, 1991). In fact, research has shown that affective
commitment is positively related to variables such as
perceived organizational support (POS) and procedural
justice.
• influence the development of affective commitment is
whether the organization is seen as a source of rewarding
outcomes that a positive relationship exists between
affective commitment and variables such as job scope,
participative decision making, job autonomy, and
perceived competence (Meyer & Allen, 1997).
• Factors affecting commitment - Job-related
factor [Symbol] Employment opportunities [Symbol] Personal
characteristics [Symbol] working
environment [Symbol] Positive
relationships [Symbol] Organizational structure
 PREDICTORS
• ORGANISATIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS 􀂃 Size 􀂃 Structure 􀂃 Climate. Etc.
PERSONAL
CHARACTERISTICS 􀂃 Demographics 􀂃 Values 􀂃 Expectation
s, SOCIALISATION
EXPERIENCES 􀂃 Cultural 􀂃 Familial 􀂃 Organisational MAN
AGEMENT PRACTICES 􀂃 Selection 􀂃 Training Compensation
ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS 􀂃 Unemployment
rate 􀂃 Family responsibility 􀂃 Union Status
RETENTION 􀂃 Withdrawal Cognition 􀂃 Turnover
Intention 􀂃 Turnover PRODUCTIVE
BEHAVIOUR 􀂃 Attendance 􀂃 Performance 􀂃 Citizenship
EMPLOYEE WELL -BEING 􀂃 Psychological Health 􀂃 Physical
Health 􀂃 Career Progress
• WORK
EXPERIENCES 􀂃 Job scope 􀂃 Relationships 􀂃 Participation 􀂃
Support 􀂃 Justice ROLE
STATES 􀂃 Ambiguity 􀂃 Conflict 􀂃 Overload PSYCHOLOGIC
AL CONTRACT 􀂃 Economic Exchange 􀂃 Social Exchange
AFFECT -
RELATED 􀂃 Attribution 􀂃 Rationalisation 􀂃 Met expectations
􀂃 Person –Job Fit 􀂃 Need satisfaction
NORM RELATED 􀂃 Expectations 􀂃 Obligations
COST RELATED 􀂃 Alternatives 􀂃 Investments
• AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT 􀂃 Organisation 􀂃 Union 􀂃 Tea
m CONTINUANCE COMMITMENT 􀂃 Organisation 􀂃 Union 􀂃
Team NORMATIVE COMMITMENT 􀂃 Organisation 􀂃 Union
􀂃 Team
• RETENTION 􀂃 Withdrawal
EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL
COMMITMENT ON JOB PERFORMANCE,
ABSENTEEISM, AND TURNOVER •
• One of the most disappointing findings in the literature on
organizational commitment is its relationship to job
performance (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). While studies
using supervisor ratings have found a positive relationship
between organizational commitment and job performance,
the relationship is weak. Studies that examined
performance with worker output measures (e.g.,
productivity) found no relationship
• Employees who are more committed to the organization
are less likely to exhibit withdrawal behaviors, such as;
absenteeism, intention to leave their jobs, or leaving their
jobs (turnover)
 APPLICATION
• Employees are more committed when employers are
committed to them [Symbol] Perceived organization
support [Symbol] Fostered when
organizations: [Symbol] Protect job
security[Symbol]Provide rewards [Symbol]Improve work
conditions [Symbol]Minimize politics
• Providing realistic job previews may also facilitate
commitment for more symbolic reasons.
• After employees enter an organization, their initial
socialization and training experiences may have a strong
impact on their ultimate level of commitment.
 RECOM
• Changes in job structure - Job rotation – moving workers from one
specialized job to another. Job enlargement – the practice of allowing
worker to take on additional , varied task in effort to make them feel
that they are more valuable members of the organization. Job
enrichment – raising the responsibility associated with a particular job
by allowing workers a greater voice in the planning , execution and
evaluation of their own activities.

• Changes in pay - Skill-based pay – paying employees an hourly rate

based on their knowledge and skills. Merit pay – a plan in which the
amount of compensation is directly a function of a employee’s
performances. Gainsharing – make pay contingent on effective group
performance. Profit sharing – all employees receive a small share of
the organization’s profits.
• Compressed work weeks – the number of workdays is
decrease while the number of hours worked per day is
increased. Flextime – a scheduling system whereby a
worker is committed to a specified number of hours per
week but has some flexibility concerning the starting and
ending times of any particular workday.

• Benefit program - Flexible working hours Variety of health

care option Different retirement plans Career development
programs Health promotion programs Employee-sponsor
childcare