Job Satisfaction - Dissertation Example

The level of employee’s job satisfaction is related to his or her expectations towards the job (Porter and Steers; 1973); this depends on many factors such as pay, promotion, or autonomy. For these expectations, each employee has certain preferential values and these preferences vary across different individuals. The above view is supported by Pearson (1991) who had found that when the level of unmet expectations becomes large, there is low job satisfaction level and the probability of negative behaviour and turn over increases.

There is no doubt that Job satisfaction is an interesting subject to both, people inside and outside the organisation (Spector 1997); Spector (1997, p.2) looked at job satisfaction as a humanitarian perspective and stated that people deserve fair and respectful treatment. While Ali (1985) looked at job satisfaction as a function of individual and organisational variables, Metle (1997) believed that individual demographic characters are likely to be the sources of variations in job satisfaction.

Locke also points out that job satisfaction is related to other phases of the employee’s life. It has been shown to affect positively, towards family, and towards self. Job satisfaction has also been shown to affect positively on the employee’s physical and mental health (Shell & Dunken 2006). Job satisfaction is considered as an important factor for establishing an organisation’s health; the quality of service rendered by an employee is affected by the job satisfaction level of the employees (Fitzgerald et al. 1994). .

ariables on quality services, such as infrastructures and internal relationships, should also be recognised as factors affecting job satisfaction (Crossman and Abou-Zaki 2003).2.1 Importance of Job satisfaction:In recent times, Job satisfaction has been one of the most significant topics in organisational research. Job satisfaction has a direct relationship with the organisational climate. In view of the fact that satisfied employees create additional positive working environment for organisations, it is worthwhile to do a research on the employee job satisfaction in organisations (Shell & Duncan 2006).

On the other hand Okpara (2006) explained that job dissatisfaction leads to negative job attitudes (i.e. absenteeism, poor performance and low productivity), which is supported by Al-Ajmi (2001) and according to him, these negative job attitudes results in low productivity and lesser profits. Moreover, Barrie (2001) has also reported that a lack of personal satisfaction is the reason of quitting the job.Literature show that satisfied workers tend to be self motivated and self motivated behaviours exceed the formal requirements of a job (Schnake 1991; Organ and Revan 1995).

In contrast, dissatisfied workers according to Spector (1997) show an increased tendency for counterproductive behaviours (i.e. withdrawals, burnout, and workplace aggression). Moreover Everts (2001) argues that the behaviour of the employees who are not satisfied, may impact negatively on their performance, as well as those around them.According to Whinghter and Blazer (2005) knowledge, understanding and improving job satisfaction can contribute positively towards the organisational goals, so the study of job satisfaction is important because of the following reasons:1- Reduced Employee