Job Satisfaction Is Not Just About Job Conditions

In the case study titled Walt Henderson, Walt Henderson works for a drafting company along side thirty other technicians that are supervised by two inspectors. Walt is demonstrating issues of a negative or unfavorable attitude at work. According to this class’s textbook “Attitudes are evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable – about objects, people, or events” (Robbins, and Judge 66). The study at hand, shows that Walt is a hard working individual that at times takes his work home to ensure projects are completed on time. In doing so, he finishes work quickly at the job and proceeds to work on personal matters in the office. Walt believes that because he completes his work early by using his personal off time that he has the right to work on personal matters in the work place. Doing personal work at the work place violates some of the rules of the work place and has been instructed to him by his supervision on the matter in the past. This paper will answer a few questions that are: What is Walt Henderson’s attitude toward work? What are the main components of Walt Henderson’s attitude toward work? If Walt Henderson becomes dissatisfied in his work, what is he likely to do about it: exit the organization, voice his dissatisfaction, remain loyal, or neglect his work? And lastly, what can Walt Henderson’s supervisor do to ensure Walt’s job satisfaction without endangering

2000 studies have been published on job satisfaction since the 1950’s (Kahn, 1972). Job satisfaction refers to an employee’s feelings towards their job based on the comparison between actual versus desired outcomes (Locke, 1969). Each individual experiences various levels of job satisfaction due to their different expectations towards their job

The discussion of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction is largely generated from the theories proposed by Maslow which is known with the so call “the needs theory” and Herzberg’s theory that is called “two-factor theory” or “hygiene theory”. Both job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are assumed critical for the organizations to manage since they absolutely affect the productivity as well as the effectiveness of either the employees or the organization performance. This is proved by Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman (1959) who argue that in order to boost the productivity of employees in particular and organization in general, it is important

Research shows that when employers allow their employee’s to have the freedom associated with autonomy, job satisfaction rises. In theory this increase in the level of employee job satisfaction comes from the sense of greater responsibility for the quality of their work. Also, autonomy can also increase motivation and happiness, along with decreasing employee turnover. All of which can make employees perform better in their job. An example of a company that found success by giving employees complete autonomy is a start-up by the name of Bellhops, which allows their employees to make their own schedules, the people they would like to work with, and even allows them to turn down a job. Also in part of these liberating policies they have had an increase of employee’s from 2,000 to 10,000. It has really been a success for the new company and employees are very satisfied (INC.). But sometimes employees that are used to the traditional 9 to 5 work environment with the authoritarian bosses tend to have a harder time adjusting to this new liberating concept. According to an article written by Donna Wells, both employees and management may have to be reeducated in order to be able to perform their jobs with the new responsibilities of an autonomous environment. It is critical to be able to communicate with the management and employee in the first few months, this can be the difference between success and failure. Especially with employees that are too familiar with the traditional

Landis, E. A., Vick, C. L., & Novo, B. N. (2015). Employee attitudes and job satisfaction. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 12(5), 37-42. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/docview/1764139256?accountid=12085

There are five components of organizational citizenship behavior; conscientiousness, altruism, civic virtue, courtesy and sportsmanship. On reflecting on these components both of the managers highlighted in this essay conveyed conscientiousness behavior. Overall, each focused

Four articles have been critically analysed to conclude that job satisfaction is the most common cause of behavioural changes in the workplace (Chang, Daly, Hancock, Bidewell, Johnson, Lambert, & Lambert, 2006; Chang, Bidewell, W., Huntington, Daly, J., Johnson, Wilson,

Prior to Bush, Moch, and Pooyan’s popular study in 1987, research indicated that demographic differences are associated with job satisfaction, but the evidence had been inconsistent and there was still much to learn about the stability of the reported relationships. To fill the gap that was missing in previous research, Bush et al. (1987) conducted a meta-analysis which collected results across numerous independent samples to better understand existing relationships among populations. The authors included age, race, gender, education, job tenure, and organizational tenure in their demographic variables. Data was collected from 21 organizations where the mean age was 36.8 and over half of the participants had a college education. Participants averaged 7.3 years in their current job and 10.3 years at the organization.

This research paper discusses components of Job Dissatisfaction (chapter 3). Based upon research, the paper will analyze elements of organizational citizenship behaviors and personality-job fit theory. In addition, the paper introduces factors that organizations and employees can consider to reduce job dissatisfaction, or improve job satisfaction.

Organizational commitment is critical to organizations due to the desire to retain a strong workforce. Organizations want to know why employees stay or leave their organizations so if correction is needed they have some tools to proceed with the correction. High turnover of employees in an organization can determine if an organization is successful or not. While turnover is related to all three areas of commitment researchers have determined that Affective commitment is one most associated with absenteeism and organizational citizenship (Williams J. 2004).

As organisations have developed to suit and cater for an increasingly competitive marketplace, so too have the ideas and notions of job satisfaction. In fact, these ideas and notions have developed to such an extent through both theoretical and empirical means that it has now become the most important application of human resource management within the workplace. In its simplest form, job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable with which to judge an employee’s inclination towards their work. However, these attitudinal variables are so diverse and wide-ranging that it is fundamentally

Without consideration being given to the ‘employer perspective’, the development of a psychological contract in the minds of employees — that is, a picture of what they owe the organisation and what the organisation owes them in return — can result in perceptions of inequity in the exchange relationship. To retain balance in the psychological contract, any perceived increase in employee obligations to the organisation needs to be matched by a perception of increased rewards. If increases in employee obligations are determined as exceeding increases in employee rewards, it is possible to assume that a negative shift has occurred in the psychological contract. This situation, in turn, is likely to result in a decrease in perceived obligations to the organisation, as witnessed in employee withdrawal of organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) or in employees’ leaving the organisation.

Job satisfaction is the very important factor in general quality of life because it is closely connected with working life (e.g. Argyle, 1989; Bang & Lee, 2006), with family life, everyday life, and mental health (Orpen, 1978; Schmitt and Bedeian, 1982; Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005). Level of job satisfaction is also highly related to turnover, absenteeism rate, work productivity or accomplishment (Muchinsky, 1977; Organ, 1977). Many researchers (e.g. Cherrington, 1994; Acorn, Ratner & Crawford, 1997; Ostroff, 1992; Spector, 1997) state that employees who experience high job satisfaction contribute to organisational commitment, job involvement, their physical, mental health and overall well-being are improved. Job dissatisfaction on the

Employee behaviours could often have an impact on organisational performance and achievement of organisational goals. In any organisation, its members could display varied behaviour where minimalists would contribute just enough to maintain affiliation while others may exhibit overt and discretionary behaviour which is beyond their stipulated job description and likely to benefit the organisation (Turnipseed and Rassuli: 2005). This latter behaviour where the employee goes the extra mile proactively engaging in such activities has been described by various nomenclatures such as Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) by Organ (1988) as cited in Organ (1997), pro-social organisational behaviour (Brief and Motowidlo: 1986), contextual performance (Borman and Motowidlo: 1993) and extra-role behaviour (Van Dyne et al: 1995).

Katz (1964) proposed that for an organization to operate successfully, employees must be willing to do more than the minimal performance and specific technical aspects of their job (Rioux & Penner, 2001). Out of this comes the development of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB). OCB represents “individual behaviour that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization” (Organ 1988, p. 4). The study of OCB has become increasingly important as the prevalence, importance, and costs of counterproductive, or deviant, behaviour in the workplace have been increasingly recognised (Lee & Allen, 2002). Theoretically, OCBs are of interest because they cannot be explained by the same mechanisms as those motivations that encourage people to perform within formal role requirements (Smith, Organ & Near, 1983). OCB’s are not easy enforced by the possibility of punishment, as they are discretionary behaviours that are beyond in-role requirements (Smith et al. 1983). The recognition of the costs of deviant workplace behaviour, and the intrigue behind determining what motivates OCB warrant the ever-increasing studies in this field. Research has shown there are multiple determinants of OCB, not all of which will be discussed here. This paper attempts to synthesize the research on OCB only in relation to the predictor of job satisfaction, looking at whether job