Job Satisfaction & Organizational Commitment

UNIVERSTIY OF LA VERNE

Career MBA Program

Seminar in Organization Theory & Behavior(551)

01/20/2015

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

Tsung-Han Huang

College of Business and Public Management

Abstract

This paper is talking about job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Job satisfaction is one of the most important issue in organization. Many different researches have shown literature of job satisfaction. However, individual's personality, values, the work situation, and social influence can influence a person's job satisfaction. Readers will find some theories and model in this paper, and also it will show how to measure and increase job satisfaction in an organization.

In the organizational commitment, this paper will show organizational commitment relates to feelings and beliefs about the employing organization as a whole. Affective commitment and continuance commitment both are an important point in the organizational commitment. Organizational commitment is a kind of psychological commitment. Good organizational commitment can make employee be a part of it and feel like a strong member of the family.

Introduction

In the text book part,  job satisfaction is a very important issue in an organization because it cannot only influence a wide range of behaviors in organizations potentially, and also help employees’ levels of well-being enter high level. Job satisfaction includes feelings, beliefs, and thoughts, which are about respect to one’s current job in behavior way. How can people think and feel about their jobs or job satisfaction? They are often through personality, the enduring ways a person has of feeling, thinking, and behaving to review their job satisfaction. Four factors affect the level of job satisfaction a person experiences: personality, values, the work situation, and social influence.

Values can influence the levels of job satisfaction because they show employees’ faiths about the outcomes which work will bring and how one will behave at work. The work situation is the most important source in job satisfaction. The work situation can be affected from many different ways. such as, the work itself Co-workers, supervisors, and subordinates Physical working conditions Working hours, pay, and job security. All of these can influence a person's job satisfaction. The final factor in job satisfaction is social influence. It influence on a person’s attitudes and behavior. social influence can be affected in employees’ levels of job satisfaction by coworkers, the groups a person belongs to, and the culture a person grows up and lives.

Job satisfaction relates to feelings and beliefs from specific jobs; however, organizational commitment relates to feelings and beliefs about the employing organization as a whole. Organizational commitment have two different types of commitments which are affective commitment and continuance commitment.  When employees are happy to be members of an organization, this situation is belong to affective commitment. Affective commitment is that organization makes employees believe in and feel good about the organization and what it stands for, and intend to do what is good for the organization. The commitment that exists when it is very costly for employees to leave an organization because organization will pay employees' loss of seniority, job security, pensions, medical benefits, etc... As a result, affective commitment generally has more positive consequences for employees and organizations than continuance commitment.

Literature Review in Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is the goal of every model of career guidance. Typically, great focal point is placed on the first selection of career. It is assumed that if an employee has a good initial choice, he/she may have a good job satisfaction for decades. Now, job satisfaction is very important issue for any organization; therefore, organizations need to have predicting and maintaining satisfactory job performance for their employees.

One of the earliest theories of job satisfaction is Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory (Work and the Nature of Man, Cleveland, OH, 1966). The two factor theory are motivators and hygienes. The motivation is intrinsic factors such as the work itself, responsibilities, and achievements. The  hygienes is extrinsic factors such as company policies, working conditions, and pay. Herzberg further found that intrinsic factors were more strongly correlated with satisfaction while extrinsic factors were more strongly correlated with dissatisfaction. If the organization wants to bring job satisfaction to their employees, the organization must focus on motivator factors, such as making the work more interesting, challenging, and personally rewarding. However, this theory has not been supported because Many research studies have attempted to replicate and test Herzberg’s findings, but this theory only has little success.

Other theory is Locke’s Value Percept Theory. Its definition is values as that which one desires or considers important for. Individuals’ values would determine what satisfied them on the job. Only the unfulfilled job values that were valued by the individual would be dissatisfying. Accordingly, Locke’s Value Percept theory expresses job satisfaction as follows:

S = (V, ─ P) * Vi or

Satisfaction = (want ─ have) * importance

Where S is satisfaction, V, is value content or amount wanted, P is the perceived amount of the value provided by the job, and Vi is the importance of the value to the individual. When Individuals evaluate their job satisfaction, they consider multiple facets, so the satisfaction calculus is come from each job facet. One potential problem with the Value Percept theory is that what one's want and what one's important issues are likely to be highly related.

Through theory, these concepts are separable, in reality many people will find that it is difficult to separate the two. For example, why should I desire a great deal of pay if pay is not important to me? However, many researches have supported on Locke’s theory. One study (Rice, Gentile, & McFarlin, “Facet importance and job satisfaction,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 1991, 76, 31-39,) found that facet importance controlled the relationship between facet amount and facet satisfaction. However, facet importance did not control the relationship between facet satisfaction and overall job satisfaction. According to Locke's theory, facet satisfactions should additively predict overall satisfaction because facet importance was already reflected in each facet satisfaction score.

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