Sociology

Case study The Geeks of Chic evidently articulates that the problems of job attitude and job satisfaction have important consequences for both organisations and their employees.  From the case study perspective, satisfied employees of Geeks, excluding unsatisfied Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown, perform their jobs better, are less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviours, and are more likely to exhibit altruism and general compliance.  This particular analysis of case study aims to discuss the most critical issues regarding job satisfaction and job attitude occurring in it through the examples of Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown.  From the argument perspective, it is evident that Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown pose a significant human resource and organizational problem for The Geeks of Chic.

Job satisfaction represents a very important issue for every organization, because it decreases the chances of the employees withdrawal, intentions to leave and turnover incidents. Job satisfaction also was shown to be associated with the employees health and psychological well-being.  Studies show that this job attitude commonly correlates negatively with somatic complaints, depression and stress.  In addition, job satisfaction is related to satisfaction with life in general.  These statements are particularly important to the case of Ralph Ford, Geeks software developer, whose productivity and general attitude towards his work have been declining over the past few years.

Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown determine how positive or negative a job situation or organizational changes are by comparing their work experiences to personal standards. Weiss defined job satisfaction  as a positive (or negative) evaluative judgment one makes about ones job or job situation (Weiss 2002 175).  From the critical perspective, job satisfaction can be explained as individuals internal state that manifests itself in feeling of favor or disfavor towards an experienced job.  Job expectations influence the determination of whether or not one is satisfied at work.  Practically, from the very beginning every employee has certain job expectations upon entering a new organization, which may vary from the material or non-material rewards for good performance, self-actualization job opportunities, the availability of interpersonal contacts and networking, etc.  Therefore, it is evident that depending on ones values and needs occurring at a specific time, job expectation may have very unique and individualistic characteristics.  From the perspective of the case study, it is evident that the more Ralphs and Millicents expectations are in agreement with experiences at work, the higher their job satisfaction, and, consequently, the higher probability that they will stay with their organization.

Classical studies on job satisfaction and performance confirmed that fulfilled job expectations explain a significant proportion of variance in the levels of job satisfaction and other job-related attitudes.  Research suggests that expectations concerning jobs in general (for instance about kinds of jobs available to an individual, pay, or promotion opportunities) can also influence job satisfaction.  This statement is particularly characteristic for the situation with both Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown, because both employees publicly express their negative views on promotional decisions made by companys management.  Interestingly, in the case of Ralph Ford, research literature on job satisfaction and performance indicates that women experience higher levels of job satisfaction compared to men, even though they often hold jobs that are lower paid and less satisfying in terms of job content and promotion opportunities.  From the critical perspective, this difference could be explained by the fact that women have lower job expectations because of their traditionally poorer situation in the labor market.  However, this difference may be negligible in the case of women who are young, higher-educated, and work as professionals or in male-dominated workplaces.

From the case perspective, employees intentions to stay or leave the organization are important to organizations for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the separation and replacement costs absorbed by the organization, the learning curve or time it takes to train a new employee to function effectively and efficiently in the work environment, the potential innovation loss, productivity shortages and the like.  As the case suggests, Ralph Ford is getting to the point where he is seriously considering leaving the company and starting his own consultancy (The Geeks of Chic 2010).  In regard to this situation, Boshoff and Mels indicated that employee turnover has a detrimental effect on the employees job performance and thus on organizational effectiveness.

According to Chandrashekaran, McNeilly, Russ, and Marinova, voluntary turnover is not a desirable outcome in any organization (Chandrashekaran, McNeilly, Russ, and Marinova 2002  464). They discussed two distinct streams of intentions research, with one largely focused on the formation of intentions, and the other focused on the predictive ability of intentions data.  An employees intentions to leave were the focus of many studies because it is believed that intentions lead to actual behaviour and that the greater the stated intention to perform an act, the greater is the likelihood of engaging in the behavior (Chandrashekaran et al. 2002 467).  Practically, in the case of Ralph Ford, his intentions to leave the organisation lead to performance decrease, absenteeism and overall poor organizational commitment.

Concept of organization commitment holds that employees who are organizationally committed are less likely to be absent and to have intentions to leave their companies voluntarily.   Researchers still do not concur about the definition of organizational commitment, however, there is a consensus that organizational commitment includes attitudinal and behavioural commitment.  The former is a measure of an individuals loyalty to an organization and emphasizes an individuals identification and involvement in the organization, while the latter is the process that individuals use to link themselves to an organization and emphasizes their actions.  From the practical perspective, both Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown exhibit poor organizational commitment, which manifests in continuous resistance to change in the organization, absenteeism, poor performance while working in teams, etc.  As Ralph Ford points out, the Geeks is simply not the place it used to be and that he did not like the direction in which it is heading (The Geeks of Chic, 2010).  

Redman and Snape noted that organisational effectiveness will be enhanced where organisations are able to elicit high levels of commitment from their employees, since committed employees show higher work effectiveness and organisational citizenship behaviour, and lower absence and turnover (Redman and Snape 2005 301).  Furthermore, studies have linked commitment to a long list of positive work behaviours, including job satisfaction, attendance, voluntary turnover, absenteeism, employee performance, and extra-role and organizational citizenship behaviours.  However, from the critical perspective, it is important to emphasise that the extent to what an individual is organizationally committed necessarily depends on the nature of that commitment.  Both Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown demonstrated their organizational commitment as long as the companys management acted according to their expectations.  Ralph Fords organizational commitment has significantly declined when he did not receive an expected promotion Ralphs productivity and general attitude towards his work have been declining over the past few years. The rot seemed to commence when he was overlooked for promotion in the first round of re-structures of the new company (The Geeks of Chic 2010). Millicent Brown exhibits poor organizational commitment mainly during her interactions with other employees Millicent in particular often talks over the top of newer staff members and ridicules their suggestions (The Geeks of Chic 2010).

Regardless of the variation in conceptualization of organizational commitment by researchers, Wasti found an increasing consensus that organizational commitment is a multidimensional construct (Wasti 2003 304), including affective, normative, and continuance commitment.  Researchers consider affective commitment to be the most desirable form of commitment because it is based on an emotional attachment, which leads to positive behavioural outcomes performed by the employee for the benefit of the organisation (e.g. citizenship behaviours and employee performance).  Furthermore, affective commitment had the strongest and most consistent relationship with desirable outcomes (Wasti 2003 304).  Continuance commitment is considered to be the most undesirable form of commitment because it is based on the idea of sunken costs, in which an individual remains with the organization based on the costs they would incur upon leaving.  This type of commitment leads to lower levels of performance and satisfaction, as well as to decreased instances of citizenship performed by the employee.  From the critical perspective, Millicent Brown evidently demonstrates the continuance commitment to her organization, because, unlike Ralph Ford, she does not express the intention to leave, however, is deeply unsatisfied with her work.

Because the organization constitutes an abstraction for many employees, it is important to understand that practically it is represented through superiors, co-workers, subordinates, workgroups, customers and even virtual teams that collectively comprise the organization.  

Thompson and Heron (2005) state that a growing literature from a number of diverse fields, such as knowledge management, innovation and organizational behaviour, emphasizes the important part played by the quality of employee-manager relationships in creating the context within which employee behaviour and attitudes are fostered (p. 399).  This statement is particularly important in the light of the relationship between Ralph Ford and his superior Ursula Ryan.  Ralph exhibits an extremely poor level of commitment to supervisor (as a part of organizational commitment), having no intention of accepting Ursulas appointment graciously (The Geeks of Chic 2010).  Chen, Tsui, and Farh purported that among these foci of commitment, the supervisor could be most important for employees.  Acting as an agent of the organization, the supervisor often interacts with employees on a daily basis, enacting the formal and informal procedures of organized activities and, most importantly, serving as an administrator of rewards to subordinates (Chen, Tsui, and Farh 2002 339-340).  The idea of multiple foci of commitments at work is a relatively new concept in the field of organizational studies.  From this perspective, employees attidunal commitment to an organization cannot be understood only in terms of commitment to an organization alone as an abstract entity, and since any organization, as discussed above is comprised with many determinants (e.g. co-workers, interactions, networking, etc), organization commitment has multidimensional nature.

As the case demonstrates, both Ralph Ford and Millicent Brown represent a human resource problem, and one of the issues that significantly deepens it is their lack of organizational citizenship.  Organizational citizenship is individuals behaviour, voluntary and not formally rewarded, that contributes to the effective functioning of the organisation and its success.  Literature exploring the relationship of organizational citizenship with variables like job satisfaction, employee satisfaction and organizational commitment is well established.  Organizational citizenship can be manifested in organization in various situations and through different patterns, from aid to a coworker and voluntary assumption of ad-hoc tasks to punctuality and cooperation above the acceptable norms.  The case articulates that on the level of interpersonal communication Millicent Brown shows little organizational citizenship she poorly interacts with other team members while working on mutual projects and ridicules co-workers ideas.  Podsakoff  described helping behaviours as voluntarily helping others with, or preventing the occurrence of, work related problems (Podsakoff et al. 2002 515).

Organizational citizenship literature has identified and focused on four categories of antecedents individual (or employee) characteristics, task characteristics, organizational characteristics, and leadership behaviours (Podsakoff et al. 2000).  Organizational citizenship may contribute to the organizational success by (a) enhancing coworker and managerial productivity (b) freeing up resources so they can be used for more productive purposes (c) reducing the need to devote scarce resources to purely maintenance functions (d) helping to coordinate activities both within and across work groups (e) strengthening the organizations ability to attract and retain the best employees (f) increasing the stability of the organizations performance and (g) enabling the organization to adapt more effectively to environmental changes (Podsakoff et al. 2000 523).  Unfortunately for the organization, Ralph Ford demonstrates poor organizational citizenship as a result of his low job satisfaction, poor organizational commitment, overall job attitude and resistance to change.  The latter is evidently manifested in his expression it should be the people who have been there from the outset who should reap the benefit of the companys current prosperity (The Geeks of Chic, 2010).  This statement is succinct explanation why both Millicent Brown and Ralph Ford represent a human resource problem in Geeks.