OBHR 330 Chapter 4: Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction

a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences, represents how you feel and think about your job; high job satisfaction experience positive feelings and low job satisfaction experience negative feelings

Values

things people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain

Value-percept theory

argues that job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies the things that you value

Value-percept theory equation

dissatisfaction=(Vwant - Vhave)*(Vimportance); Vwant reflects how much of a value an employee wants, Vhave is how much of a value the job supplies, and Vimportance reflects the importance of that value

“Facets” that create job satisfaction

pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, coworker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself

Pay satisfaction

employees’ feelings abut their pay, including whether it’s as much as they deserve, secure, and adequate for both normal expenses and luxury items; moderately strong effect on job satisfaction

Promotion satisfaction

employees’ feelings about the company’s promotion policies and their execution, including whether promotions are frequent, fair, and based on ability; moderately strong effect on job satisfaction

Supervisor satisfaction

employees’ feelings about their boss, including whether the boss is competent, polite, and a good communicator; strong driver of overall job satisfaction

Questions employees ask about supervisors

can they help me attain the things that I value and are they generally likable?

Coworker satisfaction

employees’ feelings about their coworkers, including whether they are smart, responsible, helpful, fun, and interesting as opposed to lazy, gossipy, unpleasant, and boring; strong driver of job satisfaction

Satisfaction with the work itself

employees’ feelings about their actual work tasks, including whether these tasks are challenging, interesting, respected and make use of key skills rather than being dull, repetitive, and uncomfortable; strongest driver of job satisfaction

Value-percept theory conclusion

employees will be satisfied when they perceive that their job offers the pay, promotion, supervisors, coworkers, and work tasks they value

“Critical psychological states” that make work satisfying

meaningfulness of work, responsibility for outcomes, knowledge of results

Meaningfulness of work

degree which work tasks are viewed as something that “counts” in the employee’s system of philosophies and beliefs

Responsibility for outcomes

degree which employees feel they’re key drivers of the quality of the unit’s work

Knowledge of results

extent to which employees know how well (or how poorly) they’re doing

Job characteristics theory

describes central characteristics of intrinsically satisfying job; argues that variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback result in high levels of the three psychological states and make work tasks more satisfying

Feedback

reflects feedback obtained directly from the job as opposed to feedback from coworkers or supervisors

Identity

degree which the job requires completing a whole, identifiable, piece of work from beginning to end with a visbile outcome

Knowledge and Skill and Growth need strength

moderators that influence strength of relationships between five job characteristics

Growth need strength

captures whether employees have strong needs for personal accomplishment or developing themselves beyond where they currently are

Job characteristics theory steps

assess the current level of the core job characteristics to arrive at a “satisfaction potential score”, then the organization and job design consultants attempt to redesign aspects of the job to increase the core job characteristics levels, resulting in job enrichment

Job enrichment

the duties and responsibilities associated with a job are expanded to provide more variety, identity, autonomy, and so forth

Job crafting

alternative to job enrichment; employees shape, mold, and redefine their jobs in a proactive way

What’s responsible for the ebbs and flows in satisfaction levels?

Mood and emotions

Moods

states of feeling that are mild in intensity, last for an extended period of time, and are not explicitly directed at or caused by anything

Mood categorization

pleasantness (feeling pleasant or unpleasant) and activation (feeling activated and aroused or deactivated and unaroused)

Two conditions critical to trigger intense positive mood

activity must be challenging and employee must possess unique skills needed to meet the challenge

Flow

created by high challenge and high skill combination, a state where employees feel a total immersion in a task at hand, sometimes losing track of how much time has passed

Affective events theory

workplace events can generate affective reactions, reactions that can influence work attitudes and behaviors

Emotions

states of feeling that are intense, last only a few minutes, and are clearly directed at (and caused by) someone or some circumstance

Postive emotions

joy, pride, relief, hope, love, and compassion

Negative emotions

anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, sadness, envy, and disgust

Emotional labor

need to manage emotions to completed job duties successfully

Emotional contagion

one person can “catch” or “be infected by” the emotions of another person

Why is job satisfaction important?

it is moderately correlated with both task performance and citizenship behavior, has moderate negative correlation with counterproductive behavior, strongly correlated with both affective and normative commitment, uncorrelated with continuance commitment, related to life satisfaction

Life satisfaction

degree which employees feel a sense of happiness with their lives

Methods to assess job satisfaction of rank-and-file employees

focus groups, interviews, and attitude surveys (most accurate and most effective)

Job Descriptive Index (JDI)

most widely administered job satisfaction survey that assesses all five satisfaction assets, pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, coworker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself

JDI recommendations

survey as much of the company as possible, make survey anonymous, and administered by the firm’s human resource group or an outside consulting agency

JDI data implications

whether the organization is satisfied or dissatisfied by comparing average scores for each facet with the JDI “neutral levels”, compare organization’s score with national norms, determine which departments have the highest and lowest satisfaction levels

Types of emotional labor

surface acting and deep acting

Surface acting

may hinder job satisfaction, faking it until you make it

Deep acting

may increase job satisfaction, faking the emotion so much you start actually feeling it

Out of the five facets of the value-percept theory, which facet focuses on what employees actually do?

A. coworkers

B. the work itself

C. supervision

D. pay

B. the work itself

According to the value-percept theory, in which of the following scenarios would the employee be the most dissatisfied?

A. Laura wants to focus on scientific research. In her job for Lako Chemical, about half of her time involves research and the rest involves meetings

B. Nargis wants to work with her hands. As a carpenter, she works with her hands for the majority of her workday

C. Curtis wants to work with people, so he took a job at a library. He didn’t realize most of his hours would be spent sorting returned items and shelving books

D. Lorenzo likes physical activity and taking risks. His job as an acrobat involves both of these elements, but he also spends time interacting with audience members

C. Curtis wants to work with people, so he took a job at a library. He didn’t realize most of his hours would be spent sorting returned items and shelving books

Which of the following examples of work involves the core job characteristic of identity?

A. Malik works as a jack-of-all-trades, which includes carpentry, plumbing, and yard work

B. Joan works as a therapist rehabilitating accident victims so they can walk again

C. Diego requires little supervision for his office work because it involves standardized forms

D. Min-jun took two years to write a novel, from starting the first draft to getting it published

D. Min-jun took two years to write a novel, from starting the first draft to getting it published

Which of the following demonstrates how day-to-day events can affect job satisfaction?

A. after receiving news of his mother’s illness, Baltasar because stressed about the deadlines of his job

B. after talking about his baseball team to a coworker, Onni bought game tickets during his afternoon break

C. after talking to her manager, Venia realized she could finish her work by the deadline

D. after planning the project for months, Victor finally received the go ahead

A. after receiving news of his mother’s illness, Baltasar because stressed about the deadlines of his job

When employees’ specific values are comfort and safety, which general category of work values would be most important to them?

A. status

B. pay

C. environment

D. promotion

E. supervision

C. environment

Sean is a gas station employee whose job consists of ringing up customers who don’t pay at the pump. Which of the following statements is true about Sean's job?

A. it has low stability

B. it has high identity

C. it has high utilization of ability

D. it has high moral significance

E. it has low variety

E. it has low variety

Which of the following is true regarding value-percept theory?

A. value-percept theory suggests that satisfied employees are becoming more and more rare

B. value-percept theory describes the central characteristics of intrinsically satisfying jobs

C. value-percept theory implies that perceptions of the work environment are unrelated to job satisfaction

D. value-percept theory suggests that people evaluate job satisfaction according to specific "facets" of the job

E. value-percept theory implies that moral causes and gaining fame and prestige are relevant in all jobs

D. value-percept theory suggests that people evaluate job satisfaction according to specific "facets" of the job

A person with ___ job satisfaction will tend to have high life satisfaction

A. weak

B. high

C. moderate

D. high negative

E. low positive

B. high

____ is a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences

A. job satisfaction

B. life satisfaction

C. organizational growth

D. job development

E. emotional labor

A. job satisafaction

Values are defined as

A. the particular combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of an individual

B. those things that people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain

C. a set of shared attitudes, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, an organization, or a group

D. pleasurable emotional states resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences

E. processes that elicit, control, and sustain certain behaviors

B. those things that people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain

Thato, Ellis, and Amahle have just finished a team project and are waiting for their supervisor's feedback. Thato is not satisfied with the team he is working with and has hostile feelings toward them. He feels annoyed because they procrastinated their parts of the assignment until the last minute, and now he is feeling nervous that their sections will be filled with errors. How would you describe Thato’s mood?

A. intense negative

B. pleasant deactivated

C. unpleasant deactivated

D. intense deactivated

E. intense positive

A. intense negative

Eliska is well established as a financial analyst at the Magnify Investment Company. She has significant financial responsibility for her family, and she has recently applied for a mortgage. Which of the following work value categories would likely be important to her?

A. altruism

B. pay

C. status

D. achievement

E. environment

B. pay

According to the job characteristics theory, the degree to which carrying out the activities required by a job provides employees with clear information about how well they are performing is known as

A. autonomy

B. feedback

C. identity

D. meaningfulness of work

E. significance

B. feedback

According to research, of the five facets of value-percept theory, which two facets have moderate (as opposed to strong) correlations with overall job satisfaction?

A. coworker satisfaction and supervision satisfaction

B. supervision satisfaction and altruism

C. pay satisfaction and promotion satisfaction

D. satisfaction with the work itself and promotion satisfaction

E. promotion satisfaction and coworker satisfaction

C. pay satisfaction and promotion satisfaction