Employee attitude, satisfaction, emotion and commitment Prepared By: Siti Rokiah Siwok for UHS 2062 at UTM Skudai Johore.

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

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 performance Self esteem.26 Self efficacy Internal locus of control 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