The literature review sets out a synthesis describing how previous studies of the subject are related to each other and to the present study. This section discloses the review of literature on job satisfaction studies in Ghana as well as abroad and highlight the significant works of the researcher. This serves as an introduction to the discussion of the concept of job satisfaction and its role in the economic growth of an organization. Also, the literature review seeks to bridge the reader to the foundation of the approach to the study and to facilitate understanding of the concept. It also reviews the concept in general in order to bring into focus the overview of job satisfaction, its theories and determinants, merits and demerits, and the general growth of the company. Job satisfaction is considered as one of the key factors for the success of an organization.
Organization takes efforts to satisfy their employees, to make them committed and to develop their extra-role behaviors. A satisfied, happy and hardworking employee is the biggest asset of any organization including cooperative societies. For the success of organization, it is very important to manage human resource effectively and to find whether its employees are satisfied or not. 2.1 Job Satisfaction and performance Various schools of thought have in diverse ways tried to explain the meaning of job satisfaction.
Locke (1969, 1976) states that job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience. Spector (1997) defines job satisfaction as an extent to which people like or dislike their jobs. This implies that, satisfied employees have positive attitude toward job which leads to high-performance level whereas dissatisfied employees have negative attitude toward work which yields low-performance result. Other authors consider job satisfaction as the attitudes people have toward their job (Ivancervich et al., 2005). In this direction, Mankoe (2002) states that, job satisfaction is a set of feelings which employees have about their work.
For example Smith et al. (1969, p. 6), view job satisfaction as feelings or affective responses to facets of the (workplace) situation?. This definition of job satisfaction is an emotional reaction of employees in relation to the aspects of their job and response(s) they experience at the workplace. It describes how happy employees are with the facets of their job.
This to some extent connotes that, a satisfied worker is the one who is contented with the facets of his or her job. Job performance on the other hand, comprises apparent behaviors that people observe in their job that are important in achieving organizational goals and these behaviors must be pertinent to the goals of the organization (Rotundo and Sackett, 2002). The burgeoning literature of organizational behavior and organizational psychology suggest that, job satisfaction and performance relationship is the most researched area (Judge et al., 2001). Their relationship has been studied widely over decades and the growing interest in the study of the two phenomena is unusual (Spector 1997). Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) describe this relationship as Holy Grail? of industrial/organizational psychology and the rationale behind the rising interest in the study of the relationship between the two variables by various organisations around the world is to recognize the components of employees’ satisfaction for appropriate control (Saifuddin et al., 2012). In summary, job satisfaction is defined as an extent to which people like or dislike their job which implies whether employees are happy and contented in fulfilling their desires and needs at work.
Theories / Models of job satisfaction The review of related literature comprises of synthesizing various opinions, findings of different writers documented in books and journals, concepts, analyses, recommendations of various scholars on the issue under investigation to establish one’s theoretical foundation. The review focuses on determinant of employee’s job satisfaction. Various theories have been propounded trying to explain job satisfaction in the literature, among these theories, prominent ones are divided into two set of categories: these are content theories and process theories. Content theories focus on factors leading to job satisfaction or dissatisfaction and suggest that job satisfaction come true when employees’ need for growth and self-actualization are addressed by their job. Process theories attempt to describe the interaction between variables for job satisfaction and explain job satisfaction by looking at how well the job meets one’s expectations and values. Each of two theory groups have been explored by many researchers.
in explaining the evolution of job satisfaction Theories of job satisfaction (Content theories) Content theories focus on factors leading to job satisfaction or dissatisfaction and suggest that job satisfaction come true when employees’ need for growth and self-actualization are addressed by their job. Examples are as follow: Abraham Maslow’s Theory Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs illustrated in figure 2.1 is said to be the most extensively cited theory of motivation and satisfaction (Weihrich and Koontz, 1999). Maslow’s (1943) argument based on humanistic psychology and clinical practices revealed that, an individual’s motivation/satisfaction requirements could be arranged in pecking or hierarchical order namely physical needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem/achievement needs, and self-actualization (Maslow, 1943). The theory explains that when one level of these needs is fulfilled or satisfied it does no longer motivate.
Therefore, next higher level of need must be initiated to inspire the individual so as to feel satisfied (Luthans, 2005). However, needs are affected both by weight attached to them and the level at which an individual wants to meet those needs (Karimi, 2007). Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory Herzberg’s theory is said to be the most functional model to study job satisfaction (Kim, 2004), and it has been used as a theoretical framework for evaluating the Police Officer’s job satisfaction (Getahun et al., 2007). The Two Factor Theory suggests that there are two factors that could satisfy or dissatisfy workers in carrying out their responsibilities namely job-satisfiers or motivator factors and job dissatisfaction or hygiene factors. Job-satisfiers are aspects of the job that stimulate employees’ job satisfaction and it considers aspects of a job such as recognition, achievement, responsibility, advancement and the work itself.
Alternatively, job dissatisfaction or hygiene factors are regarded as contextual factors which are not necessary motivating but their absence at the workplace bring forth dissatisfaction Herzberg et al. (1959). However, this theory has received a lot of critics for its motivator and hygiene contents which disregard individual differences and perceives that individual employees would respond in the same way to changes in motivator and hygiene factors (Karimi, 2007). Equity Theory.
According to Yusof and Shamsuri (2006), this theory has been extensively studied over decades under the title of distributive justice. The proponent of this theory, Adams (1963) proposes that workers consider their input (what they put into a job) in relation to their outcome (what they get from a job) and try to evaluate this ratio with the input-outcome ratio of their colleagues in other organizations. State of equity is said to exist if they realize that their ratio is equivalent to that of their colleagues in other organizations (Robbins, 2005). Similarly, there is inequity if the ratio is not corresponding. Equity brings forth satisfaction among employees while inequity leads to dissatisfaction. Perry et al.
Found those employees’ satisfaction increases with rewards only when these rewards are valued and observed as equitable. Job Design Theory. This theory suggests that the job aspects of an employee will show the level of his or responsibility in the organization. In following Moynihan and Pandey (2007), job transparency causes greater job satisfaction as job clarity generates such employees who are more satisfied with the work, committed to the work and concerned with the work.
The theory states five features of a job including skill variety, task identity, task significant and autonomy as factors that affect individual’s perception of how important the work is, and eventually affects satisfaction level. Autonomy represents the level of exercising self-control the more independent a worker feels, the more responsibilities he or she assumes. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory. Vroom (1964) suggests that the motivations of people to work to realize their dreams depends on assumptions that the objective is worthy and are certain that what they do will aid them accomplish their goals (Weihrich and Koontz, 1999).
Robbins (2005) posits that this theory is founded on three variables namely valance, expectancy and instrumentality. Valance refers to the strength of individuals’ preference for a particular output. Expectancy considers the likelihood that a specific effort will produce a particular first-level outcome. Instrumentality on the other hand, is the extent to which first-level outcome will cause desire for second-level outcome. For instance, employees could be motivated (motivational effort) toward superior performance (first-level output) to gain promotion (second-level output) (Luthans, 2005).
Similarly, Newstrom (2007) explains that satisfaction is as a result of three factors including how much reward is wanted (Valance), the estimate of probability that effort will lead to successful performance (expectancy) and the estimate that performance will result in getting reward (instrumentality). Hence, Satisfaction/Motivation = Valance X Expectancy X Instrumentality. Since the main focus of this study is to explore whether job satisfaction can have an effect on organizational performance, these theories have been chosen to guide the study. The causes of job satisfaction would be explored in the next section of the chapter. Causes of job satisfaction. People usually tend to consider their appraisal of work experiences in terms of liking or disliking and develop feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with respect to their job and the organization as a whole.
Many factors account for how favorable an individual appraises his or her job, more especially the attitude of an individual toward his or her work. Research has identified a number of variables that seem to contribute to either job satisfaction or organizational commitment. According to Jex (2002), researchers have considered three approaches to explain the development of job satisfaction namely job characteristics, social information processing (organizational characteristics) and dispositional (worker characteristics). Job Characteristics The job characteristics approach assumes that the nature of individual’s work or the characteristics of organization is a predominant determinant of job satisfaction (Jex, 2002).
According to Hackman and Oldham (1980), job characteristic is facet of a job that causes a rise in level of motivation, satisfaction and performance. They suggest five features of a job for which all jobs have in common including skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. Again, they define four personal work outcomes such as internal work motivation, growth satisfaction, general satisfaction and work effectiveness. These job features have been fused together with the most common aspect of job satisfaction assessment which includes promotional opportunities, supervision, work itself and co-worker relations (Smith et al., 1969).
A general principle in study of the outcome of job characteristics on job satisfaction is that individual assess job satisfaction by comparing benefits they are currently receiving from their jobs with what they believe they should receive. Therefore, satisfaction will be achieved if individual’s expectation from the job is fulfilled. Contrary, dissatisfaction sets in if expectations far exceed what is being received. Variation in satisfaction is as a result of individual differences and expectation levels. Therefore, in keeping with this, individuals would compare aspect of a job such as skill level, promotional opportunities, seniority, supervision, work recognition, salaries and incentives, autonomy, nature of work, etc. to determining their level of satisfaction in an organization.
Measurement of job satisfaction To measure job satisfaction properly, one must have broad understanding of the construed to decide what direct factors to measure. Considering the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of job satisfaction (Coverdale, 1979), likewise no exclusively accepted theory to give details, it is not surprising that there exist no single upon best way to measure job satisfaction (Wanous and Lawler, 1972). The most fundamental forms of measurement might take into account an interview, a single-item measure, or workplace observation, but other researchers prefer in-depth survey instrument (Spector, 1997). The mainly cited survey instrument identified in the literature comprises the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ).
Job Descriptive Index (JDI). Smith, Kendall, and Hulin’s (1969) Job Descriptive Index is the most extensively used tool in measuring job satisfaction in recent times. More than 50% of articles available in management related journal use Job Descriptive Index to measure job satisfaction level. It is in this direction that Vroom’s (1964) concluded that ?the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) is without doubt the most carefully constructed measure of job satisfaction in existence today?. In connection with this, O’Reilly and Robert (1973) state that, Job Descriptive Index (JDI) as a research instrument and diagnostic gauge; is widely used in business and government and its validity is also authentic (Smith et al., 1969). Job Descriptive Index seeks to measure employees’ satisfaction with their job in five dimensions, namely present job, present pay, supervision, opportunities for promotion and co-workers.
