1 job satisfaction: implications for science and policy nsf meeting on the national accounts of...
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Job Satisfaction:Implications for Science and PolicyNSF Meeting on the National Accounts of Well-Being
Timothy A. Judge
University of Florida30 November 2006
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PreliminariesImportance of work
• People spend majority of waking hours engaged in work
• Principal source of identity in Western world– reflected in doing (“what do you do?”) and
being (surnames)
• Thus, how people react affectively and cognitively to the work role might be of consequence behaviorally
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PreliminariesWhy: ‘might be of consequence’?
• Job satisfaction is an attitude, and support for attitude-behavior linkage has been inconsistent in social psychology– “there is considerable variability in the degree
to which attitudes predict behavior” (Glasman & Albarracín, Psych. Bulletin, 2006)
• Why might job satisfaction be different?– Job satisfaction may be more salient
(personal) than typical social attitudes
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PreliminariesThree imperatives
1. Job satisfaction – outcome relationships must achieve construct correspondence
2. Affect (mood and emotions) must be considered in job satisfaction models and methods
3. Job satisfaction must be construed as a multilevel phenomenon
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1 Correspondence imperativeWork outcomes of job affect• Job satisfaction related to impressive array of work
behaviors– Job performance (Judge et al., 2002)
– Attendance at work (Sagie, 1998)
– Turnover decisions (-) (Tett & Meyer, 1993)
– Decisions to retire (-) (Sibbald, Bojke, & Gravelle, 2003)
– Psychological withdrawal (-) (Necowitz & Roznowski, 1994)
– Prosocial/citizenship behaviors (LePine et al., 2002)
– Prounion representation votes (-) (Friedman et al., 2006)
– Workplace incivility (-) (Mount, Ilies, & Johnson, 2006)
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1 Correspondence imperativeLife outcomes of job affect
• Also related to many non-work indicators of well-being– Life satisfaction (Judge & Watanabe, 1993)
– Physical and mental health (Cass, Siu, Faragher, & Cooper, 2003)
– Other’s benefits: student learning, customer satisfaction, etc. (e.g., Homburg & Stock, 2004)
– Quality of marital interaction (Rogers & May, 2003)
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1 Correspondence imperativeHowever…• Correlations with work behavior are reliable but not
particularly strong– Most r’s .15 ≤ r ≤ .35 (.32 ≤ d ≤ .74)
• Why?– Correspondence (Fishbein-Azjen)
• Attitude-behavior linkages often have failed to achieve correspondence (Hulin & Roznowski, 1993)
– Specific attitude predicting broad behavior– Broad attitude predicting specific behavior
– Missing affect (thus failing to fully assess job satisfaction as the social attitude that it is)
-8-Source: Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton (Psych. Bulletin, 2002)
Job Satisfaction – Job Performance D-value
Mean r=.31Mean d=.66
Number of correlations=311.12-.50
.50-.88
0.88-1.26
-.25-.121.26-1.62
Num
bers
of
stud
ies
repo
rtin
gd-
valu
e in
cat
egor
y1 Correspondence imperativeJob satisfaction – job performance
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1 Correspondence imperativeResults of recent study
• When job attitudes (here, commitment+satisfaction) and outcome (here, ‘individual effectiveness’) are both construed broadly, effects are strong
Source: Harrison, Newman, and Roth (2006)
(Values are standardized coefficients)
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1 Correspondence imperativePractical nature of effects
• Harter et al. (2002) linked 12-item Gallup Workplace Audit to the performance of 7,939 business units– “How satisfied are you with _____ as a place to work?”– “At work, my opinions seem to count”– “I know what is expected of me at work
• Business units above the median on employee engagement had a 70% (i.e., [63%-37%]/37%) higher success rate than those below the median on employee engagement
• Results were consistent across broad criteria of:– Customer satisfaction–loyalty: customer satisfaction, customer loyalty– Productivity: revenue, revenue-per-person– Profitability: profit as a percentage of revenue (sales)– Turnover: annualized percentage of employee turnover (turnover rate)– Safety: lost workday/time incident rate– Composite performance: overall or performance using all outcomes
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1 Correspondence imperativeSummary
• When job satisfaction is construed and measured as a broad attitude, and…
• when the behavioral manifestations of this attitude are similarly construed and measured broadly, then…
• the attitude – behavior relationship is strong and theoretically and practically meaningful
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2 Affect imperativeHistorical role in job satisfaction research
• Classical definition of job satisfaction– A pleasant or positive emotional state
resulting from an appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke, 1976)
• It has been argued that researchers have emphasized cognition more than affect (Weiss, 2002; Hulin & Judge, 2003)
– In theorizing and measurement– Why is this a problem?
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2 Affect imperativeTheory without affect
Work role contributionsSkills and abilitiesTimeEffortTraining
Work role outcomesPay and benefitsStatusWorking conditionsIntrinsic outcomes
Environmental/economic factors
Frames ofreference
Personality
Job/work roleevaluations
Work withdrawalabsence (-)citizenshipincivility (-)
Job withdrawalturnover (-)retirement (-)malingering (-)
Attempts to Δwork situationvote for union (-)job redesign
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2 Affect imperativeMeasurement without affect
• Without trying to advance an artificial dualism between cognition and affect– Measures of job satisfaction are descriptive-
evaluative Y for “Yes” if it describes (scored 3) N for “No” if it does NOT describe (scored 0) ? if you cannot decide (scored 1)
SUPERVISION COWORKERS ___Impolite ___Boring ___Praises good work ___Intelligent
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2 Affect imperativeImplications for research methods
• Emphasizing role of affect poses problems– “Measurement of affect should reflect its
statelike, episodic nature” (Hulin & Judge, 2003)
• Unless we revise research design, we’ve reached a “methodological stalemate” (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1983)
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2 Affect imperativeSummary
• Affect theoretically important to any attitude – including job satisfaction
• Theories, measures, and models in job satisfaction research have cognitive orientation
• Including affect will require different research models and methods
• Need to conceptualize job affect as multilevel phenomenon (next imperative)
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3 Multilevel imperativeConceptual model
United States
Illinois Michigan State
Psychology Economics Psychology Economics
Diener
Hulin
Lucas
Ilgen
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
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3 Multilevel imperativeRole of experience sampling methodology
• One of the most promising means of conceptualizing job satisfaction as a multilevel phenomenon is to utilize designs that capture within-individual (daily variation); such designs show– Affective events influence job satisfaction– Job satisfaction associated with temporally-dependent
moods/emotions– Job satisfaction affects daily variation in work and nonwork
behaviors– Individual differences moderate the associations
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3 Multilevel imperativeMicro (individual-level) moderator
10
15
20
25
30
35
Extraverts
Introverts
Pos
itive
Moo
d at
Hom
e
Source: Judge and Ilies (2004)
Low job satis-faction at work
High job satis-faction at work
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3 Multilevel imperativeMacro (cultural-level) moderator
Source: Huang and Vliert, 2004
One way to investigate job satisfaction as a multilevel phenomenon is to aggregate at a higher (or decompose at a lower) level (than the typical individual difference perspective)
Another way – on display here – is to consider higher-level variables as moderators of effects on, or consequences of, job attitudes
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3 Multilevel imperativeConceptual framework
Culture
Organization
Work group
Individual
Intra-individual
Cross-Culturalvariation in job
satisfaction
Organizational-levelvariation in job
satisfaction
Group-leveldifferences in job
satisfaction
Individual differencesin job satisfaction
Within-individual(e.g., diurnal) variation
in job satisfaction
Emotion-drivenbehavior
Performance,job/work withdrawal
Individual differencesin job satisfaction
Organizationperformance/sustainability
Ml+1
Ml+1
Ml+1
Ml+1
Ml+1
Δ
Δ
Δ
Δ
ΔNational
competitiveness/quality of life
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3 Multilevel imperativeSummary
• In addition to considering breadth, and affect, another way to further our understanding of the importance of job attitudes is to consider the multilevel nature of job satisfaction
• Need to conceptualize outcomes – and moderators – that correspond to this multilevel nature
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SummaryTakeaways
• Job satisfaction is important to work and life outcomes
– Especially when broad measures of job attitudes and outcomes are used
• Affective and multilevel nature of job satisfaction have shown further practical import of construct
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SummaryRecommendations
• Measure it!– National Longitudinal Surveys suggest what
is possible but measurement is very limited
• Need for more multilevel, longitudinal research
• Focus on quality of working life is natural non-partisan issue– Benefits to employees and employers