Job Satisfaction & Performance

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Todays class is about job satisfaction and its implications for organizations

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Outline
What is Job Satisfaction? Satisfaction & Motivation The antecedents of Job Satisfaction The outcomes of Job Satisfaction

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one's job values. Job dissatisfaction is the unpleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as frustrating or blocking the attainment of one's job values or as entailing disvalues (Locke: 1969: 316)

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Satisfaction & Motivation

Job Satisfaction Attitude stemming from the evaluation of ones working conditions and outcomes relative to ones expectations. Motivation Directing effort toward the attainment of objects/conditions/outcomes (leading to job satisfaction)

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

The antecedents of Job Satisfaction

Individual Dispositions Organizational factors Interaction between individual and situational factors

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Individual Dispositions
Individual differences (Personality, locus control, positive and negative afectivity, etc) Demographics (Gender, age, etc.) of

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Individual differences
Study 1: Job Satisfaction: Environmental and Genetic Components Research Question : Is there a significant genetic component to job satisfaction? Sample: Thirty-four monozygotic twin pairs who had been reared apart from an early age (same genetics, different circumstances) Method: Subjects completed the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (faceted measure of JS intrinsic, extrinsic, general) Jobs were assigned scores based on their relative complexity, motor skills, physical demands, and undesirable working conditions associated with their respective tasks, duties, and responsibilities. Findings: Approximately 30% of the observed variance in general job satisfaction was due to genetic factors. Implications: Individual differences might be as important a factor in determining job attitudes as that of the job or work environment itself

Arvey, R., Bouchard, T., Segal, N., & Abraham, L. (1989). Job Satisfaction: Environmental and Genetic Components. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(2): 187192.

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Individual differences
Study 2: Dispositional Approaches to Job Satisfaction: Role of Negative Affectivity Research Question : Does Negative Affectivity influence job satisfaction? Note Negative Affectivity is a stable and ongoing disposition to experience aversive emotional states (anxiety, irritability, neuroticism, self-depreciation) Sample: 315 professional employees of a large services firm in the US Method: Subjects responded to a questionnaire measuring job characteristics, job satisfaction, and Negative
Affectivity.

Findings: Negative Afectivity was a significant predictor of job satisfaction, though the association was not strong. There was a strong association between job characteristics and job satisfaction Implications: Individual dispositions and job characteristics are important predictors of job satisfaction.
Levin, I., & Stokes, J. (1989). Dispositional Approach to Job Satisfaction: Role of Negative Affectivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(5): 752758.

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Factors
Organizational Climate
Set of characteristics that describe an organization and that (a) distinguish the organization from other organizations, (6) are relatively enduring over time, and (c) influence the behavior of people in the organization (Forehand & Gilmer, 1964, p. 362) Sets of characteristics include size, structure, systems complexity, leadership style, and goal directions

Job Characteristics
Skill Variety, Task Identity, Task Significance, Autonomy, Feedback (Hackman & Oldham) Loher, Noe, Moeller & Fitzgeralds (1985) meta-analysis suggests a positive relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction

Managerial Practices
While the evidence is mixed, there is some support for the idea that high-performance and high-commitment work practices, such as selective hiring, intensive training and performance-related pay may be associated with higher job satisfaction. However, labour process theorists have claimed that such practices induce stress.

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

Why should organizations care about employee satisfaction?

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

The link between job satisfaction and Organizational Performance

Until the mid-1980s it was considered that this association was weak and inconsistent
Iaffaldano and Muchinskys (1985) meta-analysis showed that the correlation between job satisfaction and performance was only about .17

More recent research suggests that the link between employee satisfaction and organizational performance is more robust
Judge, Thoresen, Bono & Patton (2001) estimated the average correlation between job satisfaction and job performance to be around .30

NOTE: These more positive results are partly explained by a broader conceptualization of performance which includes a number of employee outcomes such as turnover, absenteeism or organizational citizenship behaviors

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

The Service Profit Chain

HESKETT, J. L., JONES, T. O., LOVEMAN, G. W., SASSER, W. E. & SCHLESINGER, L. A. (1994) Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 72, 164-174.

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

The link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction

Emotional contagion theory - the emotions displayed by an individual produce a corresponding change in the emotional state of the observer
(Wangenheim, Evanschitzky & Wunderlich, 2007: 692)

Evidence
Harter, Schmidt & Hayes (2002) - Using data from 7939 business units in 36 companies found that employee satisfaction is associated with customer satisfaction and organizational productivity and profit Brown & Lam (2008) - Their meta-analysis suggests that employee satisfaction is associated with customer satisfaction and perceived service quality

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior

SEARS employee-customer-profit model

HOW did SEARS went from big losses to big profits under the leadership of CEO Arthur Martinez?

STEP 1- Focus on employees: Turning SEARS into a great place to work

Replacing extensive procedure manuals (+29000 pages) with consice collection of documented principles such as freedoms and obligations of staff, shared beliefs and leadership principles Empower managers by giving them information to make decisions Intensive training Emphasis on a value-oriented environment 360 feedback for a larger number of managers

STEP2 Focus on customers: Making SEARS a great place to shop

Great merchandise at great values Excellent customer service from the best people Fun place to shop Customer loyalty

STEP3 Making SEARS a great place to Invest

Revenue growth Efficient asset management Productivity gains

Ricardo Rodrigues

Organizational Behavior