Final Project

Job Satisfaction and Involvement

Michael A. Leonard

Walden University

Job Attitudes, Measurement, and Change

IPSY 8579

Professor Deborah Peck

The primary motive of this review is to strategically identify and evaluate factors contributing to job satisfaction and involvement (or lack thereof) as derived from a job diagnostic survey. The following will propose two instruments useful for the utilization of information gathering and the determination of productive behavior in the Walden Sports scenario.

Firstly, it is important to define what is meant by “job attitudes.” An attitude, as explained by Olson and Zanna (1993), is a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. Job attitudes, thereby, are collections of employee feelings toward assigned workplace duties (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). These responsibilities are visualized mentally in two distinct ways. The first is through the impression of adequate job satisfaction, which includes a thorough overview of employee thoughts as per what is required of them (Harrison, 2006). The second is through a complex assessment of job characteristics; these include, a employee's salaries, their working condition in the organization, and the prospective opportunities associated with the ultimate attainment of the job title (Harrison, 2006). The work opportunity develops an employee's global job characteristics in the organization, its working environment, a practical inclination, and its accumulated responsibilities required of them (Gillespie et al., 2016). Different job characteristics are accomplice within several levels of comfort within each global position attribute (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012).

Employee or job satisfaction, according to most researchers, is the measure of feelings on whether or not the employee is content with their job requirements (Thompson, 2012). For the success of an organization, there is a desire to ensure that there is a mutual and healthy relationship between the organization and the workers that are committed to its success and profitability. A company's expansion, through the formation of new departments, increases their target market, contributing to greater potential for success. A satisfying or an optimistic emotional reward that results from the assessment of an employee's job description was a definition coined by Locke (1976). Job satisfaction, on the contrary, involves the utilization of multi-dimensional psychological feedbacks of workers about their evaluative, behavioral, and emotional components (Hulin, & Judge, 2003). Organizational commitment typically means an psychologically-driven and/or personally-motivated attachment to a particular institution and its primary purpose of revealing the improved feelings of an employee. Consecutively, it foresees work variables that are inclusive in job performance, turnover results, and the citizenship nature.

Walden Sports is a fully functional sports company and has undergone major transformations in the recreational sporting sector. Walden Sports, approximately 12 years after its establishment, has reported increases in sales at 1.4 million USD annually with a gross profit of roughly 2.0 million USD (Laureate Inc, 2012). The success of the company grew rapidly and exponentially, with a CEO unprepared for such growth, which brought with it a sharp decrease in the productivity and a rise in employees missing working days or taking unapproved leaves and sick days. The CEO stated in a general meeting that employees appeared less satisfied with their job description responsibilities as compared to when they first joined their payroll, likely because of a seeming increase in stress and responsibility. The CEO further emphasized how employees were not attending activities aimed at boosting morale support in the organization, or perhaps, that those activities were not appealing enough for them to attend (2012). Job attitudes typically fall into three sub-groups: the cognitive, the behavioral, and the affective. The cognitive component encompasses the opinionated segment of an attitude while the behavioral component includes the intentions the individual possesses that compel them to behave in a particular way. The affective component includes the feeling or emotion segments of an approach. Job attitudes, therefore, includes employee engagements, perceived organizational support, satisfaction and involvement, and organizational commitment. These attitudes play a vital role is to ensure the success or failure of an organization. If the information obtained is pessimistic in nature, which is through poor employee involvements and dedication in their work only reveals facts of the organization lagging behind on proper communication methods between staff and lack of diversity, teamwork. It is necessary for the CEO of the company to target all three of these sub-groups, the cognitive, behavioral, and affective, if Walden Sports is to save its employee moral and improve its work productivity.

One option is for Walden Sports to incorporate the use of a Descriptive Job Index. The JDI is a traditional measure of job satisfaction that contains five subscales. The JDI, through the systematic scale-reduction technique, can be applied to a sample that determines items preserved in every scale. JDI also includes motivational strategies to utilize involvements in organizational activities that transpire on a day-to-day basis (Gillespie et al., 2009). However, JDI is rarely used for it is a complex model in the analysis of job satisfaction.

Another option is the employment of a Job Satisfactory Survey. A JSS is a post measurement instrument that is designed solely to provide information on employee happiness in their current job description role. The JSS usually consists of questionnaires used in the determination of a job's “bliss” and overall satisfaction. The JSS research tool was developed with a primary idea of giving a methodological guidance that could evaluate variables theoretically outlined through their numbers (Van Saane, 2003). It assesses job satisfaction for both depressed and dissatisfied workers, as well as highly satisfied employees (Spector, 1994).

The JSS, however, is considered the most complicated model, yet it fails to reveal which employee's services hinder human services in general. Most scientists disregard this type of method including Cherniss and Egnatois (1978) as it is unclear how most of the studied variables associate well with job performance (Locke, 1976). In human offered services, there exists the availability of proof that indicates how an employee's satisfaction affects their overall performance and their outcome.

The JSS job satisfactory-tool is utilized mainly during transitions and reformations that aid in the improvement of its usage. The stated satisfactory determinant tool measures an employee's morale support and satisfaction in the daily operational activities of the organization. This satisfaction, in turn, has an impact on the inter-relationships between the agencies and staff. A class of variables is essential as this instrument includes the personal reactions of the employees to their jobs and their work responsibilities on a large scale.

During the survey, all relevant data collected through the utilization of JCC was divided into sample groups that represented a single administration and one non-human service that revealed discriminatory and convergent validity. Data questions used in the data analysis, collection, included observational strategies, means and variances scale for determining job descriptions, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The primary purpose of the job survey satisfactory tool ensured for the determination and identification of relevant sources before its aftermath of the cultures that reigned in the organization.

After using the questionnaires to get information from the population set by use of survey methods which is first-hand knowledge achieved with no bias. The study categorized into three major sections with each being responsible for all the necessary job satisfaction ways in the analysis that builds a comprehensive result. The primary purpose of the utilization of the questionnaire to the sampled mean is to cover in-depth information obtained during the survey.

The printed questionnaires contain questions that have yes or no options. The overall sampled mean number of employees determined through an unbiased procedure that aimed at giving out appropriate and correct information. The average number used in the establishment and for a summary of measures of the potency of all the relevant work conducted by the organization grouped into three major scale levels and this was made possible through the supervisory management that was requested for determination to rate the employees.

Scoring cards could also be used together with questionnaires. All the relevant data would be collected and summarized into columns of autonomy, agents' feedback, and the obtained information summarized under a general job satisfaction overview. A scoreboard is another useful tool that allows for a clear and precise understanding of employee staff through their job performance that contributes to the growth and development of a particular organization. The scoreboard, however, needs to be balanced and involves processes that ensure for a consolidated meeting of all the speculated goals. The procedures include an accurately translated vision, proper planning, correct learning and feedback, and the appropriate processes of communication. The stated procedural strategies assimilated with all the current existing managerial practices that providing for all the relevant and necessary information that insures for a proper achievement of long-term goals.

This strategic information obtained from organization about its projected goals provides for a better understanding of what might hinder the success of the company in the future. Changes could thereby be made possible through the establishment of employee requirements that provides for a clear and easily understandable long-term adjustment. For a proper strategic plan, there is a dire need of for an excellent communication and linkage which promises for the teaching of balanced scorecard process. This helps the overall stated mission purpose of the company. Proper planning allows for an efficient alignment of an organization's financial dynamism, providing a well-balanced scorecard that offers an explicit allocation of resources and cumulative agreement on significant decisions that together ensure that all organizational goals are met.

References

Gillespie,M., Balzer,W., Brodke, M., Garza, M., Gerbec, E., Gillespie, J., Gopalkrishnan, P., Lengyel, J., Sliter, K., Sliter, M., Withrow, S., & Yugo, M. (2016) "Normative measurement of job satisfaction in the US", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 31 Issue: 2, pp.516-536, https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-07-2014-0223

Harrison, D.A (2006). How Important are Job Attitudes? Meta-Analytic Comparisons of Integrative Behavioral Outcomes and Time Sequences. Academy of Management Journal. Vol. 49, No. 2. Pp 305-325

Judge, Timothy A. & Kammeyer-Mueller, John D., (January 2012). Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 63, pp. 341-367, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1982985 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100511

Laureate Education Inc (2012) Introducing Walden Sports Inc, Baltimore

Locke E (1997) the Nature and Causes of job satisfaction, Organizational Psychology (Edition) pg: 1297-1349

Spector P (1994) Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) Retrieved March 25th, 2007 from

Van Saane N, Sluiter J, & FringsDresen (2003) Reliability and validity of instruments measuring job satisfaction 53(3) 200