Chapter 10: Employee Satisfaction and Commitment

• Job satisfaction


  The attitude employees have toward their jobs
• Organizational commitment


  The extent to which an employee identifies with and is involved with an organization
• The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is not consistent across people or jobs
• For complex jobs, there is a stronger relationship between job satisfaction and performance than for jobs of low or medium complexity
• For employees who have strong, consistent beliefs about their level of job satisfaction (called affective-cognitive consistency), the relationship between job satisfaction and performance is much stronger than it is for employees whose job satisfaction attitudes are not so well developed
• Three motivational facets to organizational commitment

  • Affective commitment
  • Continuance commitment
  • Normative commitment
• Affective commitment


  The extent to which an employee wants to remain with an organization and cares about the organization
• Continuance commitment


  The extent to which employees believe they must remain with an organization due to the time, expense, and effort they have already put into the organization
• Normative commitment


  The extent to which employees feel an obligation to remain with an organization
• Individual difference theory


  Postulates that some variability in job satisfaction is due to an individual's personal tendency across situations to enjoy what she does
• Certain types of people will generally be satisfied and motivated regardless of the type of job they hold
• For individual-difference theory to be true, it would be essential that job satisfaction be consistent across time and situations
• Genetic Dispositions


  Job satisfaction not only may be fairly stable across jobs but also may in part be genetically determined
• Negative affectivity


  The tendency to have negative emotions such as fear, hostility, and anger
• Four personality variables related to people's predisposition to be satisfied with their life and jobs

  • Emotional stability
  • Self-esteem
  • Self-efficacy (perceived ability to master their environment)
  • Internal locus of control (perceived ability to control their environment)
• Internal locus of control

  The extent to which people believe that they are responsible for and in control of their success or failure in life
• People prone to be satisfied with their jobs and with life in general have high self-esteem and a feeling of being competent, are emotionally stable, and believe they have control over their lives, especially their work lives
• Bright people have slightly lower job satisfaction than do less intelligent employees in jobs that are not complex
• In complex jobs, the relationship between intelligence and satisfaction is negligible
• People who are satisfied with their jobs tend to be satisfied with life, and high levels of life satisfaction are associated with high levels of job satisfaction
• Satisfaction with one's job "spills over" into other aspects of life, and satisfaction with other aspects of life spills over into satisfaction with one's job
• Employee's needs can be met in a variety of nonwork activities such as hobbies and volunteer work
• A mistake we have made for years has been to assume that a job must satisfy all of a person's needs
• An organization should work toward fulfilling those needs that it can and should help employees find alternative avenues to meet their other needs
• People who griped about everything in life, there was no significant relationship between satisfaction and turnover
• People who are unhappy in life and unhappy on their jobs will not leave their jobs, because they are used to being unhappy
• If there is a discrepancy between these needs, values, and expectations and the reality of the job, employees will become dissatisfied and less motivated
• The difference between their expectations and experiences was only minimally related to job satisfaction
• Needs/supplies fit


  The extent to which the rewards, salary, and benefits received by employees are perceived to be consistent with their efforts and performance
• Another "fit" factor that has been shown to be related to job satisfaction and commitment is the extent to which employees' desire for a particular work schedule (e.g., shift, number of hours) matches their actual schedule
• Indicators of mismatch


  • Does not seem excited when first hired or assigned to a job
  • Starts asking for some tasks to be given to other employees
  • Applies for other jobs in the organization
  • Begins to ask for new projects
  • Appears bored or unchallenged
• The top three factors for job satisfaction are opportunity for the employer to use his or her skills and abilities, job security, and compensation/pay, nature of the job
• People who enjoy working with their supervisors and coworkers will be more satisfied with their jobs
• Satisfaction with supervisors and coworkers was related to organizational and team commitment, which in turn resulted in higher productivity, lower intent to leave the organization, and a greater willingness to help
• Social information processing theory


  States that employees model their levels of satisfaction and motivation from other employees
• Social learning theory


  States that employees model their levels of satisfaction and motivation from other employees
• If an organization's older employees work hard and talk positively about their jobs and their employer, new employees will model this behavior and be both productive and satisfied
• The research on social information processing theory supports the idea that the social environment does have an effect on employees' attitudes and behaviors
• In work as in school, social pressures force individuals to behave in ways that are consistent with the norm, even though the person may privately believe something different
• Equity theory


  A theory of job satisfaction stating that employees will be satisfied if their ratio of effort to reward is similar to that of other employees