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After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1) What is job satisfaction?

•  Job  satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s

 job or job experiences. In other words, it represents how you feel about your job and what you

think about your job.

• Employees with high job satisfaction experience positive feelings when they think about their

duties or take part in task activities. Employees with low job satisfaction experience negative

feelings when they think about their duties or take part in task activities.

) What are !alues, and how do they affect job satisfaction?

• Values are those things people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain. Values play a

key role in explaining how satisfied or dissatisfied we feel about our jobs.

• ccording to value-percept theory, job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your

 job supplies the things that you value. !his theory can be summari"ed with the following

e#uation$ Dissatisfaction=(V want −V have )× (V importance)

• In this e#uation, Vwant reflects how much of a value an employee wants, Vhave indicates how much

of that value the job supplies, and V importance reflects how important that particular value is to the

employee.

•  %ote that the difference between Vwant and Vhave gets multiplied by Vimportance, so existing disparities

get magnified for important values and minimi"ed for trivial values.

") What specific facets do e#ployees consider when e!aluating their job satisfaction?

• Value&percept theory also suggests that people evaluate job satisfaction according to specific

facets of the job. !hese facets include pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervisionsatisfaction, co&worker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself.

•  Pay satisfaction refers to employee’s feelings about their pay, including whether it’s as much as

they deserve, whether it’s secure, and whether it’s ade#uate for both normal expenses and luxury

items.

•  Promotion satisfaction refers to employee’s feelings about the company’s promotion policies and

their execution, including whether promotions are fre#uent, fair, and based on ability.

• Supervision satisfaction reflects employees’ feelings about their boss, including whether the boss

is competent, polite, and a good communicator. 'ost employees ask two #uestions about their

supervisors$ ()an they help me attain the things that I value*+ and (re they generally likeable*+

• Co-worker satisfaction refers to employees’ feelings about their fellow employees, including

whether co&workers are smart, responsible, helpful, fun, and interesting. 'ost employees ask two#uestions about their co&workers$ ()an they help me do my job*+ and (o I enjoy being around

them*+

• Satisfaction with the work itself  reflects employees’ feelings about their actual work tasks,

including whether those tasks are challenging, interesting, respected, and make use of key skills.

-hereas the previous four facets describe the outcomes that result from work pay, promotions/

and the people who surround work supervisors, co&workers/, this facet focuses on whatemployees actually do.

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4) Which job characteristics can create a sense of satisfaction with the wor$ itself?

• 0esearch suggests that three (critical psychological states+ make work satisfying. !hey are$

o !he meaningfulness of work  reflects the degree to which work tasks are viewed as

something that (counts+ in the employee’s system of philosophies and beliefs.

o  Responsibility for outcomes captures the degree to which employees feel that they are key

drivers of the #uality of work output.

o  Knowledge of results reflects the extent to which employees know how well or how

 poorly they are doing.

•  Job characteristics theory, which describes the central characteristics of intrinsically satisfying

 jobs, argues that five core job characteristics make work tasks more satisfying. !hey are$

o Variety is the degree to which the job re#uires a number of different activities that involve

a number of different skills and talents.

o  dentity is the degree to which the job re#uires completing a whole, identifiable, piece of

work from beginning to end with a visible outcome.

o

Significance is the degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives of other people. It is the degree to which the job really matters.

o  !utonomy is the degree to which the job provides freedom, interdependence, and

discretion to the individual performing the work. utonomy comes in multiple forms,including the freedom to control the timing, scheduling, and se#uencing of work

activities, as well as the procedures and methods used to complete work tasks.

o  "eedback  is the degree to which carrying out the activities re#uired by the job provides

the worker with clear information about how well they’re performing. !his core

characteristic reflects feedback obtained directly from the job as opposed to feedback

from co&workers or supervisors.

•  Job enrichment  is a process by which the duties and responsibilities associated with a job are

expanded to provide more of the five core job characteristics.

%) &ow is job satisfaction affected by day'to'day e!ents?

• 1ob satisfaction levels fluctuate during the course of the day. 0ises and falls in job satisfaction are

triggered by positive and negative events that are experienced. !hose events trigger changes in

emotions and eventually give way to changes in mood.

() What are #ood and e#otions, and what specific for#s do they ta$e?

•  #oods are states of feeling that are often mild in intensity, last for an extended period of time, and

are not explicitly directed at our caused by anything. 'oods can be categori"ed in two ways$

 pleasantness and engagement.

• ccording to affective events theory, workplace events can generate emotional reactions that thencan go on to influence work attitudes and behaviours.

•  $motions are states of feeling that are often intense, last for only a few minutes, and are clearly

directed at and caused by/ someone or some circumstance. Positive emotions include, joy, pride,

relief, hope, love and compassion. %egative emotions include anger anxiety, fear, guilt, shame,

sadness, envy, and disgust.

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• 1ust because employees feel many emotions during the workday doesn’t mean they’re allowed to

display them. $motional labour  is the need for employees to manage emotions in order to

complete job duties successfully.

• Is it a good idea to re#uire emotional labour on the part of employees* 2n one hand you could

say yes. $motional contagion is the idea that emotions can be transferred from one person toanother. If an employee is angry, those negative emotions can be transferred to the customer. 2n

the other hand you could say no. Evidence suggests that emotional labour puts great strain on

employees and their bottled&up emotions may end up bubbling over, sometimes resulting in angry

outbursts against customers or emotional exhaustion and burnout on the part of employees.

) &ow does job satisfaction affect job perfor#ance and organi*ational co##it#ent? &ow

does it affect life satisfaction?

• 1ob satisfaction is an indicator of job performance. 3irst, job satisfaction is moderately correlated

with task performance. 4atisfied employees do a better job of fulfilling the duties described in

their job descriptions. 4econd, job satisfaction is moderately correlated with citi"enship

 behaviour. 4atisfied employees engage in more fre#uent (extra&mile+ behaviours to help their co&

workers and their organi"ation. !hird, job satisfaction has a moderate negative correlation withcounterproductive behaviour. 4atisfied employees engage in fewer intentionally destructive

actions that might harm their workplace.

• 1ob satisfaction is an indicator of organi"ational commitment. 3irst, job satisfaction is strongly

correlated with affective commitment, so satisfied employees are more likely to want to stay with

the organi"ation. 4econd, job satisfaction is strongly correlated with normative commitment.

4atisfied employees are more likely to feel an obligation to remain with their firm and a need to

(repay+ the organi"ation for whatever it is that makes them so satisfied. 5owever, job satisfaction

is uncorrelated with continuance commitment, because satisfaction does not create a cost&based

need to remain with the organi"ation.

• 1ob satisfaction is strongly related to life satisfaction, defined as the degree to which employees

feel a sense of happiness with their lives in general. 0esearch shows that job satisfaction is one of 

the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. 6ut simply, people feel better about their lives whenthey feel better about their jobs.

+) What steps can organi*ations ta$e to assess and #anage job satisfaction?

• !here are several methods of assessing the job satisfaction of employees7 they include focus

groups, interviews, and attitude survey. 2f those three choices, attitude surveys are often the most

accurate and most effective.

• 2ne of the most widely used attitude surveys is the Job &escriptive nde' (J&). !he 1I assesses

all five satisfaction facets pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, co&

worker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself/

• 2ne of the 1Is strengths is that the #uestions are written in a very simple and straightforward

fashion so that they can be easily understood by most employees.