Organizational Psychology Paper

Job Satisfaction Paper Rough Draft What is job satisfaction? The answer to the popular question can be as unique as each individual that the question is presented to. According to Christen and Soberman, there is a significant relationship between the effort an employee puts forth on the job, their job performance and their job satisfaction (Christen & Soberman, 2006). However, the question still lingers of what exactly is job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is essential component within any organization and needs to be clearly defined. Managers and organizational leaders must have a clear understanding of what job satisfaction is before they can effectively address the subject with their employees. Jex and Britt provided a basic definition of job satisfaction that simply states job satisfaction is “an employee’s overall evaluation of his or her job as favorable or unfavorable” (Jex & Britt, 2008). The components that are included in determining an employee’s level job satisfaction are the feelings, thoughts and behaviors that are associated with their job. In addition to determining the components that are included in gauging an employee’s level of satisfaction, there are also various indicators. An employee can express their level of job satisfaction in a number of ways. Employees can express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction verbally, physically or emotional. Employees can express their job satisfaction verbally by stating their plans to remain with an organization for an extended period of time. Job satisfaction can be physically expressed by employee through their attendance, performance and enthusiasm about their current job. Lastly, an employee can emotionally express their satisfaction regarding their job by the attitude they display in the workplace. If an employee is friendly, interacts well with their co-workers and is eager to do their job daily, it is usually an indication that the employee is satisfied with their job. There are many definitions of what job satisfaction is but essentially it is whether an employee’s overall evaluation of their current job is favorable or unfavorable (Jex & Britt, 2008).
When devoting all time and energy into a job that any person whom has work hard in getting should want to be in this field because it is exciting. Most people who didn’t receive the proper education either received a job that they just got in hopes to receive something better or just took the job for another reason that everyone has is they need the money to pay the bills. If this person has in their mind that they don’t work then they don’t have nice things or have a good living environment. In today’s business world education plays a big role in most people lives. In order to do a job well done one must take the time and effort into making the decision in deciding on what they want to do in life.
Socialization is broadly defined as “a process in which an individual acquires the attitudes, behaviors and knowledge needed to successfully participate as an organizational member.” ("Society For Human Resource Management", 2006). Clearly, in a psychology perspective an organization should want to examine the adjustment rates of new hires along with the comparable organizational socialization tactics. With the organization there should be at least four things present at this time of a learning evaluation. They are role (knowledge and mastery of skills and understanding of performance requirements); social interaction (integration with colleagues); interpersonal resources (establishment of a network of contacts); and organization with these as domains (knowledge of the structural and cultural aspects of the organization).
Additionally, job satisfaction and intent to quit are measured as attitudinal outcomes of socialization during the post-entry period. Specifically, newcomers in two organizations went through group-based socialization, were mostly segregated from insiders, went through a specific process with various stages that had to be passed according to a timetable and had access to experienced role models. Results indicated that new hires reported learning in all domains. Learning was related to attitudes not at entry, but rather at the early post-entry period, suggesting newcomers may reduce their uncertainty and begin to make sense of the new situation, which, in turn, has a positive impact on job satisfaction and intent to quit. This research also demonstrates that both information acquisition and attitude measures are relevant for measuring the process of socialization ("Society for Human Resource Management", 2006).
As Millennials enter the workplace, they struggle entering socialization into the organization. Millennials uses social organization when new employees learn about tasks and social norm through socialization processes. They utilize evaluations of employees to transition to important roles within the organization. “Millennials are likely to be perceived by supervisors and coworkers and, based on their values and lived experiences, how people think that Millennials may respond to, and be affected by, those and other factors in the contemporary workplace. Millennial values and behavioral tendencies can enhance organizations through the quality of Millennials’ relationships in the workplace and their effects on productivity” (Flanagin & Waldeck, 2004).
For example, “some management-targeted websites forewarn that Millennials may desire more flexible working conditions and hours than have been normative in most organizations. However, when Millennials communicate and act according to their backgrounds and values, others’ assessments of them may reflect expectancy violations. According to expectancy violation theory, individuals are judged based on beliefs and contextual norms about appropriate behaviors in given circumstances” (Flanagin & Waldeck, 2004). According to Jex and Britt, “ organizational commitment is the extent to which employees are dedicated to their employing organizations and are willing to work on their behalf, and the likelihood that they will maintain membership; feelings behavioral tendencies that employees have towards organizations” (2008). The relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction are closing tied together. When employees are satisfied with their position in an organization they tend to feel dedicated to that organization and more willing to work on their behalf. After employees enter an organization, their initial socialization and training experiences may have a strong impact on their ultimate level of commitment (Jex & Britt, 2008). From previous experience I have felt more inclined toward organizations where employees are supportive of each other. This includes management and members on my team.
Training also enhances organizational commitment because it conveys to newcomers that the organization is supportive and has a vested interest in their success (Jex & Britt, 2008). From my own previous experience employers that invest time in my training and make sure that I am comfortable with the tasks that have been assigned to me made me more willing to do other tasks for them and stay with them for several years. By increasing my training abilities and my experience with the organization I can earn a high pay grade which further increases the commitment I have for the organization. Employees may be more likely to perform extra duties, support, endorse the organization’s objectives, and have high affective organizational commitment if they have high levels of satisfaction with the job (Ariani, 2012). The relationship is supported if an organization is honest, even about the undesirable aspects of a job, recruits have a signal that the organization is going to treat them in a fair and honest manner in the future (Jex & Britt, 2008). The relationship is also supported if employees perceive that their leaders will support them.
Organization commitment is an attachment an employee makes with an organization. Defining organizational commitment is multi-dimensional as well as complex. There are, however, three components involved in an employee’s commitment and include affective, continuance, and normative commitment. Affective commitment deals with the employees’ loyalty while continuance commitment deals with the employees’ sense of investment of the organization. Lastly, normative continuance deals with the employees’ sense of obligation. It is their sense of what is morally right (Jex & Britt, 2008, Chapter 5).
A study was conducted with five for-profit organizations with at least one office in Long Island, New York. The study was conducted to examine the attitude of directors, managers, and staff in relation to organizational commitment and job satisfaction, along with other variables. One hundred and fifty surveys were mailed out the result was a forty-eight point seven response rate. After using the five point Likert scale here were the results of the findings (Mancini, 2008). Affective commitment was shown to positively influence job satisfaction. For managers, it explained thirty percent of the variability to predict job satisfaction; continuous commitment predicted nineteen percent, although continuous commitment revealed a negative relationship. As more people were employed, continuous commitment decreased. For staff, affective commitment showed a twenty-four percent of the variability to predict job satisfaction (Mancini, 2008).
In summary, those five organizations who participated in the study were able to see that organizational commitment does play a role in the employees’ satisfaction with their job. The type of organizational commitment that played the biggest role in job satisfaction was affective commitment. The employees, especially the staff, felt a sense of loyalty and identity within the organization. This was true especially for the employees whose years within the organization increased (Mancini, 2008).

References:
Ariani, D. (2012). Leader-Member Exchanges as a Mediator of the Effect of Job Satisfaction on Affective Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Test. International Journal Of Management, 29(1), 46-56.
Christen, M., Iyer, G., & Soberman, D. (2006). Job Satisfaction, Job Performance, and Effort: A Reexamination Using Agency Theory. Journal Of Marketing, 70(1), 137-150.
TECHNOLOGY USE AND ORGANIZATIONAL NEWCOMER SOCIALIZATION. Journal Of Business Communication, 41(2), 137-165. doi:10.1177/0021943604263290
Jex, S. M. & Britt, T. W. (2008). Organizational psychology: A scientist- practitioner approach. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. https://ecampus.phoenix.edu
Mancini, B.A. (2008). The relationship of transformational and transactional leadership to job.
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Society for Human Resource Management. (2006). Retrieved from
http://www.shrm.org/Research/Articles/Articles/Pages/OrganizationalEntryOnboarding,OrientationAndSocialization.asp