Attitude and Job Satisfaction – Critical Analysis

Describe and Critical Analysis of Attitude and Job Satisfaction.

Introduction

Organizational behavior entails the study of both individual and group performance and their actions within the environment of the organization (Carpenter, Talya, & Erdogan, 2009). People tend to behave in a particular way while ta the workplace. The behavior displayed by the employees in the organization environment tend to influence other factors such as management and leadership style, job commitment, employee interaction and job performance. The scholars have argued that organizational behavior is highly attributable to certain factors such as cultural diversity, emotions, and moods as well as attitude and job satisfaction among the company employees. Therefore, it calls for effective management and leadership skills among the organization leaders to be able to understand each behavioral aspect within the organization to manage people successfully. This essay seeks to carry out the critical analysis of the aspect of attitude and job satisfaction on the organizational behavior. For extensive and comprehensive analysis the paper uses the literature review of the relevant academic journals, articles as well as books. It is a critical and reflective paper.

Attitudes are individual or group perceptions towards a particular element. Research findings indicate that employees’ attitudes towards certain factors within the organization are predictions of the organization behavior (M. AL-Hussami, 2008). Attitudes w

 Ostroff (2002), advocated that there exists a link between attitudes and job satisfaction. The researchers have argued that the attitudes of the employees who feel that the organization is meeting their job satisfaction end to being positive. This is unlike the employees who are frustrated who portray negative attitude towards the organization. Organizations that deny their workers this experience sense to have a significant number employees talking negatively about the company ( Ahmad, Ahmad, & Syah, 2012). Similarly, the performance of the organization usually declines as the employee attitude of job involvement as well as organizational commitment is very low. Therefore, for the organization to maintain positive behavior from the perception of the employees, it should ensure that the employees' job satisfaction is a priority. This will not encourage good organizational behavior among the employees, but it will also ensure that the organizational performance is enhanced.

Saari & Judge (2004) noted that happy employees transcend their morale into organizational performance. However, the majority of the human resource professional disputes this statement (Rynes, Colbert, & Brown, 2002). In the study conducted by these three scholars about the views among the human resource practitioners about the relationship between the employees’ attitude and job satisfaction found: First, human resource professionals were no aware of the causes of the attitudes. Second, the impacts of the negative or positive employee job satisfaction on the organizational performance and finally they did not have prior knowledge on to determine as well influence the employee's attitude within the organization. Therefore, it is evident that relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and attitude is a questionable thing.

Within the organization set up the causes of the employees’ attitudes and job satisfaction vary depending on the range of factors (Saari & Judge, 2004). However, the human resource managers have notion job importance is a significant influence of an employee attitude and job satisfaction ( Khan, Ali, & Asghar, 2011). The human resources perception are disputable because the past research findings and studies have found that there other factors that contribute to employee attitudes and job satisfaction other than job importance ( Lee, Lee, & Wu, 2010). For example, cultural and dispositional factors have been very impactful in determining job satisfaction among the employees. Again, in addition to the importance of the work also the work itself is a very critical factor in influencing the attitude as well as the satisfaction of the employees.

Several studies have indicated that disposition has a huge influence on employees’ attitudes as well as job satisfaction (Mucci, 2010). One of the studies conducted by Lee, Lee, & Wu (2010) found that there is a clear link between disposition and job satisfaction. Again, Reio & Kidd (2006), found that the job satisfaction among the employees tend to be stable for a given period even when a person quits an organization to work with another company. In another related study by Hettiararchchi & Jayarathna (2014), it was found that childhood personality is highly associated with job satisfaction. Therefore, it can be argued that disposition influence is one of core factors contributing to job satisfaction. However, (Hettiararchchi & Jayarathna, 2014) disputed these studies by arguing that dispositions and personalities vary from one individual to another, and likewise the job satisfaction vary among the organization employees. Therefore, it will be misinformed to classify deposition solely as the major factor influencing the employee job satisfaction.

Cultural influences have also been found to influence the employees’ attitudes and job satisfaction (Ahmad, Ahmad, & Shah, 2010). The influences of both the country and personal culture are posting the human resource professionals with a very tough challenge of ensuring the maintenance of the positive attitude among the employees as well as job satisfaction. Studies indicate that the globalization of business has it difficult for human resource practitioners to effective manage the multicultural diversities among the employees (Rynes, Colbert, & Brown, 2002). The major case study of culture influence on the employees' attitude and job satisfaction is that of (Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede, 1985). Hofstede conducted research on sixty-seven countries to determine what the influence of culture on the employee's attitude. The study concluded that there are major cross-cultural factors that influence the employees' attitude while at the workplace. The four factors were: individualism versus collectivism; avoidance of uncertainty to escape is taking; the range at which the power is unequally distributed and finally achievement orientation. Hostfeds research has not been disputed by other researchers and instead they have replicated on the same. Therefore, it is evident that culture is a powerful factor in influencing employees' attitude and job satisfaction.

Work situations have again been found to influence employees' attitudes as well as job satisfaction. In addition to the work situation, organization impact on the employees is also very influential on attitudes and job satisfaction. This is contrary to many human resource professionals who hold that job satisfaction is directly related to the intrinsic job characteristics alone. Several studies across many jobs, employees, and organizations at different times had found that when the employees were asked to evaluate aspects of their jobs such as coworkers, opportunities, promotion, pay, and supervision. The employees responded by citing the nature of their work as the most important aspects of all the other factors (Judge & Church, 2010). Therefore, it is conclusive that the work itself has the great influence on the employees' attitude and job satisfaction.

The studies have indicated that there is a direct relationship between the employee performance and job satisfaction (Susanty & Miradipta, 2013). A literature review by ( Lee, Lee, & Wu, 2010) a show that there is a statistical correlation between the performance and job satisfaction among the employees. Therefore managers and leaders of the organizations should be able to establish mechanisms of measuring the employee's job satisfaction as well as attitudes. For example, employee attitude surveys have proved to be effective in determining the attitudes of the workers within the environment of the organization. The two commonly used tools in the employee attitude survey are Job Descriptive Index (JDI) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ (Susanty & Miradipta, 2013)). The researchers who have used these tools in their studies argue that they are effective in determining employees levels of attitudes and job satisfaction within the organization set up.

Conclusion

Job satisfaction and attitudes have a huge influence on the organizational performance. It is the responsibility of the organization managers and leaders to adopt suitable management and leadership styles. Organizational effective leadership will influence employees to develop a postive attitude toward the organization. This will be followed by employee commitment to the organization as well as to his or her work. Again, the process will be followed by employee job satisfaction. Once, the employee is satisfied with his her work he or she will translate to a positive behavior while at the workplace. This will help the organization get rid of the poor characteristics portrayed by the employees such as absenteeism, poor performance, employee turnover and low customer satisfaction. This is because the dissatisfied employees are more like to leave the organization, record high rates of absenteeism or perform below the bar while at the workplace.

References

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