Measure of Job Satisfaction - Literature review Example

Literature Review

Table of Contents

Job Satisfaction3

Measure of job satisfaction5

Job performance6

Job stress7

Motivation7

Communication7

Job involvement8

Review of Job satisfaction and job performance9

Relationship between Job involvement and Job satisfaction11

Relationship between Job involvement and Job performance12

Reference List16

• Job Satisfaction

As defined by Jerome (2013), job satisfaction is the pleasure gained or derived by an employee from his or her career. Job satisfaction is influenced by a number of factors among which the most significant ones are favourable working conditions, hike in salary, promotion, workgroups, advanced opportunities and flexible work management.

The measure of job satisfaction can be determined by analysing the balance between input offered and outcome gained. However, recent researches indicate that growth rate of an organisation is directly proportional to the extent of employee satisfaction. The American Behavioural Scientist Herzberg gave his opinion on the similar issue by investigating on the factors of dissatisfaction among the employees. His observations conclude the fact that the main factors of dissatisfaction among the employees relates to organisational policy, job security or the salary being offered by the company (Taormina and Gao, 2013). On the other hand, the level of satisfaction improves with the enhancement in hygiene factors such as achievement, growth and workplace recognition.

According to Kaur (2013), job satisfaction or dissatisfaction does not only depend on the nature of job, however the concept is greatly influenced by the individual expectations that employees have from their job. In response to this, Maslow arranged the human needs along the five levels of hierarchy that represents physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem and self-actuation (Yusoff, Kian and Idris, 2013). The pyramid clearly depicts that, employees feel satisfied while their needs gets fulfilled gradually rising from the lower level to higher. Hence, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has demonstrated job satisfaction from the perspective of need fulfilment. Moreover, it forms an alignment between the individual perseverance of needs and what they achieve from their jobs to fulfil them.

Figure1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need

(Yusoff, Kian and Idris, 2013, p.20)

However, Maslow’s need theory has diminished in value and is replaced by advanced theories. In the present trend, the concept of job satisfaction mainly focuses on the cognitive processes rather emphasizing on studies of basic needs.

In response, Herzberg proposed motivation-hygiene theory to analyse the main determinants of job satisfaction. The theory highlights two distinctive categories of needs out of which one is known as intrinsic (motivators) factors, whereas the other one is extrinsic (hygiene) factors (Malik and Naeem, 2013). As per the theory, job satisfaction or dissatisfaction is considered to be the function of these two need systems, where the intrinsic system is directly related to the job and extrinsic factors have positive influence on job satisfaction. The motivators consider career growth and development, challenging work, recognition, etc. Alternatively, extrinsic factors closely relates to the workplace environment and favourable condition of work. Hygiene factors relates to the factors of dissatisfaction and encompasses the key factors such as supervision, company policies and administration, job security, interpersonal relationship, salary and working conditions (Christen, Iyer and Soberman,2006).

Fig: 2. Herzberg’s Two factor Theory

(Malik and Naeem, B., 2013, p. 1032)

• • Measure of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction can be measured by using Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire and Job description index. The Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire is mainly a paper-pencil type questionnaire which can be implemented both in group and individually; however, it does not consider the differences in sex. Utmost 20 work features are measured through this questionnaire and responses to these takes around 20 minutes (Gupta and Tayal, 2013). This set of questionnaire generally consider the following aspects of job, such as activity, achievement, recognition, responsibility, variety, social status, creativity, independence, compensation, company policies, moral values, authority, security, supervision-human relations, supervision-technical, working conditions, advancement, social service, co-workers, activity and social status.

The job description index is the simple and easily applicable method of measuring job satisfaction. The key factors considered in job description index are benefits and compensation, relationship with the co-workers, opportunities for career development and promotion, attitude towards the supervisors and lastly, the nature of work (Aziri, 2011).

• Job performance

According to Dave and Raval (2015), job performance refers to all the activities or behaviours that an employee engaged in while at work. However, this description is rather vague as the behaviour of an employee displayed in work is not necessarily related to the job specific aspects. Fundamentally, job performance considers how well an employee or individual performs at his or her work. Job performance tends to influence the five organisational outcomes such as satisfaction of employees, satisfaction of customers, higher quality of product or services, productivity and financial performance (Berghe and Hyung, 2011).

Job performance of an employee is measured by assessing their level of productivity. A number of researches have been conducted to evaluate the influential factors of job performance which mainly include the quality, quantity, creativity and knowledge of individuals towards their accomplished work. The conceptual framework of job performance is presented below:

Fig: 3. Theoretical Framework of Job performance

(Muda, Rafiki, and Harahap 2014, np)

• • Job stress

Muda, Rafiki and Harahap (2014) opined that job stress is evident from the situation of job scenario that posses threat to an employee. This happens when the personal abilities of an individual is insufficient to coordinate with the job demands. It is said that, job performance is greatly influenced when the capacity of an individual falls short to achieve the job demand, which in turn disrupts the worker both physically and psychologically.

• • Motivation

Lubakaya (2014) describes motivation as the desire or willingness to attain the goal which is further conditioned by the ability or activity to satisfy the needs. Motivation is the key influential factor to job performance, as it directly relates to self-satisfaction, need fulfilment of employees which in turn encourage commitment from them which is expected to produce better quality of work and obligation to the policies of organisation. Such an approach will extensively materialise the competitive advantage and efficiency.

• • Communication

Several researchers have expressed their interest on effectiveness of communication competency as a predictor of employee success. The importance of communication in organisations is directly linked with the job performance and work productivity. Effective communication helps an employee to maintain coordination among the team members and superiors, whereby the absence of it incurs problems in delivering efficient performance and also affect the relationship among individuals. Pushpakumari (2008) suggested that individuals willing to involve in effective communication must possess both verbal communication skills and abilities; otherwise, it could lead to communication gap. Furthermore, information effective communication among superior and subordinate depends on the facilities offered by the organisation as well as actions of managers to accept the information with the focus to achieve accurate delivery. Hence, to attain good performance, managers must enforce initiatives to develop and provide opportunities for their employees on learning new skills through effective communication process.

• Job involvement

Job involvement refers to the measure of the extent to which an employee takes part in decision making processes. Employees are encouraged to involve in decision making processes of an organisation in order to motivate them and develop a sense of belonging among them. According to Muda, Rafiki and Harahap (2014), job involvement indicates a positive relation between the superior and subordinates which in turn boosts the organisational outcome. Khan et al. (2012) stated that job involvement of an employee considers the fulfilment of cognitive needs which assists the individual to work hard and boost up their job performance. Researches state that there are four key ways to categorise the employee job involvement which are, active contribution of employees to job, consider work as the central interest, performance as the core of self-esteem, and compatibility of performance with self-concepts.

It is evident that employees who consider their work as the central interest of all activity tends to involve more actively in their respective job roles and in turn get better chances to make decisions. This in turn enable them to play to an essential role in the organisational goals (Indermun and Saheedbayat,2013). Moreover, job involvement is viewed as the fixed variable that has significant control on working attitude of employees, such as the job satisfaction, commitment to organisation and tendency to resignation.

• Review of Job satisfaction and job performance

There has been critical assessment in various organisational setting in order to determine the relationship between job satisfaction and performance. According to Rizwan and Fawad (2011) of satisfaction encourages the employee to improve its performance; hence, to ensure employee satisfaction, organisations invest a lot of effort to motivate them. The productivity or output of an organisation is determined by the job performance of its employees. Shaw (2005) investigated that higher level of job satisfaction results in better performance of an individual. High performers demand attractive packages from the employers; whereas, the human resources experts’ pays utmost attention to retain the performers, which in turn enhance their job satisfaction. Alternatively, lower level of job satisfaction has adverse effect on the commitment of employees which sequentially effects the attainment of organisational goals performance.

Figure 4: Theoretical framework

(Source: Author’s creation)

According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), happy workers may not necessarily be referred as productive workers; however, at the individual level, the evidence tends to be more significant. On shifting the focus from individual level to that of organisation, there has been a renewed support for the relationship between job satisfaction and performance. By gathering data on satisfaction and employee performance for the organisation as a whole rather than considering the individual level, it is found that organisations having more number of satisfied employees tend to perform much better than the ones having lesser number of satisfied employees (Jerome, 2013).

Moreover, employees with better job satisfaction tends to adjust more flexibly in organisational setting, maintain work-life balance and attain better emotional stance. Alternatively, discontentment among the employees will not only affect their performance but also hampers their social and emotional perspectives. Recent researches estimate that rate of absenteeism moves downward the hierarchy ladder with managers having the lowest rate of poor performance, subordinates having the highest level of absenteeism and the supervisors occupying the intermediate position(Saari and Judge,2004). This relates to the fact that managers are the most satisfied employees; hence, their performance is high, followed by supervisors and the subordinates. Poor performance is positively correlated with job satisfaction and to their feeling of job insecurity which in turn hampers their performance. Also, poor performance is negatively correlated with the achievement of motivation. Hence, a satisfied employee has a positive attitude towards their work and hence gives out better performance. Good performance is less among the ones who are satisfied than the ones who are dissatisfied.

• Relationship between Job involvement and Job satisfaction

The concept of job involvement closely relates to the psychological identification of how an individual gets involved within the decision making processes and other organisational virtues. Job involvement is directly correlated with job satisfaction which in turn reduces the unexplained absenteeism, influence their work performance and develop a sense of achievement. Christen, Iyer and Soberman (2006) suggested that job involvement is associated with job and job related outcomes such as the employee’s commitment towards work, ethical behaviour, intention to leave the company, lower the rate of conflict and ambiguity and employee’s readiness towards change.

Job satisfaction is the determinant of work experience; whereas, higher levels of job dissatisfaction are the indicators of deep organisational problems. Job dissatisfaction is greatly linked to employee turnover, absenteeism and leads to physical and psychological health issues. According to Ghazzawi (2011), studies reveal a range of low to moderate relationship between job satisfaction and job involvement. This implies that if an individual is less satisfied with his or her work, there is more possibility of the absenteeism, seeking other job opportunities or tendency to resign, hence implying lesser involvement (Klassen and Chiu, 2010). Job involvement refers to how an individual perceive their work or job in relation to their (a) working conditions and environment, (b) balance between work and life, (c) and the job. Having low job involvement has significant contribution to employee’s feeling about alienation in organisation, feeling of separation from jobs, alienation of purpose, etc.

In relation to the above context, Mathieu et al. (2014) view job involvement as the means of aiding productivity by developing a working environment that would allow better integration of organisational as well as individual goals. In contrast, Mehboob, Sarwar and Bhutto (2012) presented an argument by stating that, job involvement can be increased by providing employees with more challenging and demanding roles. Consequentially, it is evident that such involvement enhances the individual satisfaction of employees, while increasing the productivity in turn.

• Relationship between Job involvement and Job performance

Job performance refers to the activities that are related to the formal role requirement of employees. Fundamentally, job involvement positively effects the motivation and efforts of employees, which results into higher level of job performance. Warr and Inceoglu (2012) looks forward to link job involvement with performance through organisational commitment. Organisational commitment of an employee refers to the relative strength of an individual in indentifying and involving with the objectives of an organisation. Sykes, Venkatesh and Johnson (2014) mentioned three characteristics of organisational commitment, they are: acceptance and strong belief on the values and goals of organisation, willingness to impart considerable effort to achieve organisational goals, and strong desire or intent to sustain within the organisation. They also argued that job involvement leads to commitment first which in turn results into high level of job performance.

Researches state that organisational commitment partially mediate the relationship of job involvement and job performance. It has been found that people who are highly involved in their jobs or those who consider jobs as their major source to satisfy their needs, is likely to have less tendency of leaving their present job and consequently, they are more committed to their jobs(Dusterhoff , Cunningham and MacGregor, 2014). As a result, committed employees exert more effort in order to contribute towards the success of organisation, thereby leading to high performance.

Figure 5: Relationship between Job involvement and job performance

(Dusterhoff , Cunningham and MacGregor,2014,p.267)

The figure clearly suggests that employees who are highly involved in their job tend to produce better results and productivity for organisations. However, the result is not generalised for each employees as attitude of individuals act as the moderating factor which has contingent effect on the relationship between independent and dependant variables.

From the figure above, the following assumptions can be made:

P1: information has positive impact on job involvement

P2: knowledge has positive impact on job involvement

P3: Empowerment has positive effect on job involvement

P4: Rewards tends to have positive effect on job involvement

P5 Job involvement are positively related to job performance

P6: Individual attitude has significant impact on the relationship between job performance and job involvement.

The primary contribution of this paper emphasizes on extending the theories of various authors by considering that job satisfaction is an important aspect of an organisation through which it can enhance the productivity of employees. The findings reveal that there is a positive relation between the development of job involvement and employee satisfaction to its performance. It has been found that high degree of job involvement enables the employee to produce better performance and generate favourable results for the organisation. Moreover, the paper has highlighted the theories that have been considered as an important demonstration of how an organisation can encourage involvement of employees and its significant impact on job satisfaction and job performance. Hence, it can be concluded that more involved employees are actively present on their jobs and tends to avoid certain activities that are undesirable for the organisation. This in turn not only improves the productivity of organisation but also increases the level of employee satisfaction. Consequentially, satisfaction leads to a situation where employees dedicate all their effort thus improving their performance.

• Reference List

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Christen, M., Iyer, G. and Soberman, D., 2006. Job satisfaction, job performance, and effort: A reexamination using agency theory. Journal of Marketing, 70(1), pp.137-150.

Dave, N. and Raval, D., 2015. Review of Literature on the Study of Job Satisfaction of the Teachers of Higher Education Institutions. International Journal, 3(5), n.p.

Dusterhoff, C., Cunningham, J.B. and MacGregor, J.N., 2014. The effects of performance rating, leader–member exchange, perceived utility, and organizational justice on performance appraisal satisfaction: Applying a moral judgment perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(2), pp.265-273.

Ghazzawi, I., 2011. Does age matter in job satisfaction? The case of US information technology professionals. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict, 15(1), p.25.

Gupta, A. and Tayal, T., 2013. Impact of competing force of motivational factors on employees at work place. In Information and Knowledge Management 3(5) pp. 143-148).

Indermun, V. and Saheedbayat, M., 2013. The Job Satisfaction-Employee Performance Relationship: a Theoretical Perspective. International Journal Of Innovative Research İn Management, 11(2), pp.1-9.

Jerome, N., 2013. Application of the Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory; impacts and implications on organizational culture, human resource and employee’s performance. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 2(3), pp.39-45.

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Khan, A.H., Nawaz, M.M., Aleem, M. and Hamed, W., 2012. Impact of job satisfaction on employee performance: An empirical study of autonomous Medical Institutions of Pakistan. African Journal of Business Management, 6(7), p.2697.

Klassen, R.M. and Chiu, M.M., 2010. Effects on teachers' self-efficacy and job satisfaction: Teacher gender, years of experience, and job stress. Journal of educational Psychology, 102(3), p.741.

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