Job satisfaction theories related to productivity Essay Example

the employee's job satisfaction.* The other work characteristics such as the amount of work, its environment, feedback, autonomy and the variety of skills comprise this group and are also influential in job satisfaction.

* Personality aspects of the employee constitute the last category: stress tolerance ability, self-esteem and general life satisfaction. A great amount of theories was proposed regarding these factors (Smith, 1998, Judge, ; Watanabe, 1993, Miller, 1980).One of the first efforts to comprehend and analyze job satisfaction was Maslow's need hierarchy theory (Maslow, 1954, Bellott & Tutor, 1990). Maslow has ranked individual needs according to their importance. In the lower level he placed physiological and safety needs. Those are the ones that control behavior, but only until they are fulfilled.

When that happens the second level which consists of esteem and belongingness needs is activated. This principle of activation affects job satisfaction, in terms of making the employee have an active need constantly (because when one level of needs is fulfilled the next one is activated). Nevertheless it results in making job satisfaction seem impossible and may even have the opposite result: dissatisfaction.According to Murray's manifest need theory (Murray, 1938), in terms of the present level in the need hierarchy, different people might be motivated by and satisfied with various conditions. It is also considered that all needs, under certain conditions, are of the same importance. The difference which makes this model notable is that it also considers differences among people within the importance of different need levels.

For example, employees who feel a great need of achievement are expected to fulfill this need of theirs with problem-solving and successful performance of their tasks,

whereas employees with a strong need of affiliation are expected to achieve the fulfillment of their need via developing social relationships with their colleagues. As a result, the work types most suitable for a specific person in terms of their needs can be easily predicted. Besides one can easily foretell whether a specific employee's needs will be fulfilled or not.As is expected, the need approach to job satisfaction has numerous problems and drawbacks. For starters, the aspects of need are not clearly described and the set of needs that affect behavior in different situations is not distinct or even complete (Jewell, 1998). Regardless of its problems the need for dominance, affiliation and achievement, which can be considered as work-related needs, are apt to lead to the formulation of hypotheses about the job satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Argyle, 1989).

Another theory concerning the reasons that lead to either satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the work area, is Locke's value theory (Locke 1976). Locke argued that since actions are the result of a person's emotions (both positive and negative) job satisfaction has to be the outcome of the fulfilment of specific desires and values of a person (relatively to his/ her work). Simply put, Locke's theory suggests that when the person's desires and values coincide with those of his/ her job, satisfaction is apt to be achieved.Though this model appears to have similarities with the need theory, it is quite different as it is much clearer and less confusing than the need theory. Moreover, the value theory also includes the need for money, which could not be characterized as a need of the employee the way need theorists defined needs.

Regardless of that, it shouldn't be figured that employees would value more money than their current salaries.This theory too has various problems. Among them is that knowing how an employee relates a value to a specific effect is not enough to foretell neither whether or not the employee will be satisfied, nor how much. For example, if an employee thinks of money as the greatest value of work, then changes in their wages will have an effect on their job satisfaction. Still, this is not a characteristic of all employees, thus changes in the wages will probably not affect an employee whose primary value at work is other than money.

Among the theory's advantages should be included the existence of empirical evidence in favour of the theory (Locke, 1969; Mobley & Locke, 1990). In addition, another of its advantages is that it can be related with many other theories and models, which makes it rather significant in the job satisfaction research. Landy (1985) for example, suggested that it can be in accordance with other models based on emotion. This suggestion is justified by the fact that emotional models agree that attitudes derive from a general physiological and psychological arousal.

According to Landy valued effects are more likely to lead to satisfaction than unvalued effects.Although no evidence of a relation between job satisfaction and performance was found after their revision of past literature, Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman (1959) formulated the hypothesis that some relationship between those two must exist and formed the two factor theory. The reason for the lack of evidence in favor of this view was justified by the fact that researchers in this field

did not have a clear and definite view about what work satisfaction and work dissatisfaction is. As a result, work satisfaction and dissatisfaction was dissociated according to different causality.

Herzberg et al (1959) argued that there are two basic kinds of needs characterizing people:* Hygiene needs (influenced by conditions at the working environment, both physical and psychological)* Motivation needs (which according to Maslow's (1954) need hierarchy theory, are higher order needs)In addition, the above two kinds of needs are considered to be satisfied by numerous factors (Herzberg et al, 1959, Bellott ; Tutor, 1990 Bellott ; Tutor, 1990). Dissatisfiers or hygiene factors are those linked to hygiene needs. Such factors (for example supervision, interpersonal communication and relations, working conditions, wages, policies and practices of the organization, job security and advantages) are relevant to work context or environment and even though their fulfillment cannot guarantee job satisfaction, it is vital to the reduction or even the elimination of dissatisfaction.Satisfiers or motivation factors are those that fulfill the second category of needs, the motivation needs. These factors focalize on the nature and the issues of the work itself (for example achievement, advancement, responsibility, recognition and the nature of work).

Due to the fact that motivation factors are strongly connected with the self-fulfillment need, it is considered that they can lead to complete job satisfaction, in contrary with hygiene factors (although the partial fulfillment of both factors is needed for a neutral level of satisfaction). As a result, it is only via task performance that the person can accomplice his/ her personal goals.However good this model and the theory from which it derives may seem, it does have

a major drawback: lack of evidence supporting it. The main reason why there is so little practical evidence supporting the model, is that there were a number of mistakes made from the beginning of the theory development. Thusly we cannot be sure if the theory has been based on wrong assumptions (thus leading to incorrect outcomes) or not (Argyle, 1989).Another apparent problem with this model is that the sample used to perform the statistical tests consisted mainly of white-collar workers, accountants and engineers, which are not actually representative of the working class.

In general there are mainly five different weaknesses to be observed:* Selective predisposition and defensive behavior* Method dependency* Hypotheses regarding the nature and measurement of satisfaction* Individual differences* Organizational variationsResearchers ended up with the decision to apply a key proposition of the theory, regardless of its doubted credibility. That was the so-called job enrichment. The argument that repetitive and boring tasks are apt to cause low production along with job dissatisfaction was first supported by human-resource researchers. According to their point of view, job enrichment would encourage employees to affiliate themselves with the final total product, accomplishing job satisfaction (Argyle, 1989). According to Herzberg et al.

(1959) enrichment is the managements' effort to deploy tasks in order to enhance the opportunity for personal achievement, recognition, challenge and personal growth. According to Hackman & Oldham (1976), job enrichment is expected to make the employee feel more autonomous and responsible providing him/ her with the appropriate feedback. In general job enrichment consists of the following:* Elimination of controls from a work while keeping accountability* Increase of the individual's accountability for his or her own work* Granting

work freedom for an employee's personal effortHerzberg's research had some very serious implications regarding the study of individual factors that affect job satisfaction (Funham, 1997), which are the following two:* There might be specific personality characteristics which can under different circumstances positively affect job satisfaction but they cannot affect dissatisfaction in any way.* Depending on each employees personal characteristics, he/ she can either avoid or pursue job enrichment.

Some have also claimed that due to the fact that a major part of industrial psychology has been deployed by and also measured upon middle class, white collar employees is to a great extent biased (Argyle, 1989).Another effort to study the aspects of job satisfaction is Lawler's facet satisfaction approach (Lawler, 1973). This model claims that satisfaction can be affected by various work features or facets. It is argued that job satisfaction is what derives from the coherence between the results of one's work as he/ she perceives them and the actual results:* The perception of the results by the employee depends on his/ her efforts in the past, which are relevant to their skills, education and previous experience, as well as the job's traits, responsibility and level of difficulty. Another important aspect on which perceived results depend, is the effects of the colleagues' work.* The actual results depend on the way the employer perceives his/ her important colleagues.

As obvious, this theory is strongly based on the way people react to their own perception of reality, rather than reality itself and has a strong cognitive character. Nevertheless, research on this particular theory has been limited and implausible. In their study Wanous ; Lawler (1972) examined twenty-three different

work facets with various measures of job satisfaction. One of the measures was the difference between the present facet's level and the way the employee perceives the work-related level. According to this study's conclusions, the difference between perceived and actual results can be used as a prediction of job satisfaction. Another study by Wall ; Payne (1973) concluded that when the employee's perception of the results is higher than the actual ones, he/ she is satisfied.

Nevertheless, satisfaction prediction was found to be hard for those employees who had certain beliefs about what their results should be. That last conclusion showed that the different types of scores could not clearly predict job satisfaction, thus proving that the theory is not unbiased.Lawler's model is very similar to social learning theories regarding job satisfaction or dissatisfaction, as they too argue that attitudes of employees result from their behavioural examination (Statt, 1994). The difference from Lawler's model is that here it is argued that employees tend to adopt certain behaviour and attitudes, by using their colleagues and other people as sources of information. As a result the employee's attitudes and behaviour, are on a great extent based on their colleagues' behaviours.

It could be supported that employees imitate their colleagues' behaviours. A means of explaining ones attitude towards their work is observation of others. It has been proved that successful or powerful employees comprise models of imitation by others. Generally, employees tend to imitate the behaviours of those among their colleagues who are closer to their interests or responsibilities. Thusly it is proved that apart from internal factors, even external ones can have an effect on the level

of one's job satisfaction (Berry, 1998).Finally, it has been argued that the modelling of work values can be influenced by the supervisor's behaviour When the employer shows consideration to the employee there is a strong connection between their work values.

(Statt, 1994).In conclusion, having referred to the most important studies that have been made to examine the factors that can lead to satisfaction or dissatisfaction at work, we can argue that all of these theories are equally important in understanding and predicting job satisfaction. Several conclusions have been made, some of which were more important than others, as there were more evidence to support them. Errors and omissions have been made by all of the studies.

In general the main problem of all the theories was lack of supporting evidence that characterized them.In specific, Maslow's need hierarchy theory (Hugick, L., & Leonard, J. 1991) can make job satisfaction seem unreachable, Murray's manifest need theory does not clearly describe the various aspects of need, Locke's value theory is not specific enough, Herzberg's two factor theory has used a non-representative sample of the working class to prove itself, Lawler's facet satisfaction approach has a strong cognitive character, while research on it has been limited and finally, social learning theories are also insufficient because of the unknown causes of individual differences.According to the outcomes of these studies job satisfaction should be linked with the fulfilment of the employee's personal needs (Maslow's need hierarchy theory), the differences among people in different need levels (Murray's manifest need theory), the fulfilment of one's values regarding his/ her work (Locke's value theory), specific hygiene and motivation needs as well as job enrichment

(Herzberg's two factor theory), the differences between the perceived results of work compared to the actual ones (Lawler's facet satisfaction approach) and finally, other co-workers' attitudes towards their work (social learning theories).Perhaps the most appropriate way of measuring or predicting levels of work satisfaction is to combine all of the above listed theories, as there is no theory that can claim to be fully correct and thorough.

We cannot accuse any of these theories of being wrong, but we can suggest that they are incomplete and insufficient. Finally, we can conclude that all of these studies can complete each other to make a larger theory that includes almost everything.