Employee attitude, satisfaction, emotion and commitment

Prepared By:

Siti Rokiah Siwokfor UHS 2062 at UTM Skudai Johore.

srsiwwok@gmail.com

Job related attitudes Assessing employee attitudes about their jobs is

one of the major tasks of IO psychologist.

Among the most commonly studied job related attitudes are job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Although 2 different constructs, j ob satisfaction and organizational commitment are highly correlated and result in similar employee behaviours.

Satisfaction & org. commitment

Meta analyses show that satisfied employees

tend to be committed employees.

However, the relationship between job satisfaction and performance are not consistent across people or jobs.

.

Job satisfaction and performance

The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is not consistent across people or jobs. E.g: For complex jobs, there is a strong

relationship between job satisfaction and performance, than jobs of low or medium complexity .

Job satisfaction and commitment

Job satisfaction and commitment are multifaceted.

Examples of job satisfaction facets are pay, supervision, coworkers, promotion, work facility, worksite, work policy etc

An employee may be satisfied with one facet, (such as pay) but not another ( such as work facility).

Organizational commitment

There are three motivational facets to organizational commitment ( Meyer and Allen, 1997): Affective commitment Continuance commitment Normative commitment

( Read Aamodt, 2010 for details )

Individual Differences affecting Job Satisfaction

See Aamodt 2010 pages 367-367

Approaches to study job satisfaction

Global approach

Facet approach

Assessment of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction can be assessed by asking how employees feel about their job, either by using questionnaire or interview.

Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire

Job descriptive index

What are the antecedents of Job satisfaction?

What causes employees to be satisfied with and

committed to their jobs?

Perspectives to the study of job satisfaction

Personality perspective Environmental perspective Interactionist perspective

Genetic Predisposition

Genetic predisposition (30%), a study by Arvey et. al.1989, 1994), due to the presence of inherited personality traits such as “negative affectivity”.

Genetic predisposition studies are controversial and received lots of criticism

Any takers for further studies?

Personality variables

Results of Judge and Bono’s (2001) ,Meta -analysis

Core evaluation trait

Correlation with job

satisfaction

Correlation with job

performanceSelf esteem .26 .26

Self efficacy .45 .23

Internal locus of control

.32 .22

Emotional stability .24 .19

Life satisfaction

People who are satisfied with other aspects of life seems to be satisfied with their jobs., that is “people who are happy with their jobs are happy with their life and vice versa”

Fancy using “John Travolta method”?

Others: Culture and intelligence

Culture plays great role

…and if you are too “ smart”, you won’t be hired.

Commitment

Affective commitment: the extent to which an

employee wants to remain with the organization , cares about the organization and willing to exert effort on its behalf.

Commitment

Continuance commitment: The extent an employee believes

that s/he must remain with the organization due to the time , efforts and expense that s/he has invested.

Commitment

Normative commitment: The extent the employee feel obliged to the organization, and thus feels that s/he must remain with the organization.

Consequences of Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction and Negative Work

Attitude Job performance

Turnover

Absenteeism

References

Aamodt, M.G (2007). Industrial and organizational psychology. An applied approach. Belmont, CA: Thomson