Job satisfaction and organisation commitment within the South African context: the role of situational and dispositional antecedents

Abstract

It has long been recognised that employees’ job attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction, organisation commitment), defined as “evaluations of one’s job that express one’s feelings toward, beliefs about, and attachment to one’s job” (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012:343), can have important implications at work (e.g. performance, withdrawal). Their practical and empirical relevance has maintained the prolific nature of job attitudes research for nearly a century. This trend has also taken off within the South African context. This paper provides a summary of a selection of my papers that have dealt with employee attitudes such as job satisfaction and organisation commitment. The paper starts by defining and conceptualising job satisfaction and organisation commitment. It then turns to discussing the importance of job satisfaction and organisation commitment. Next, it focuses on dispositional and situational antecedents of job satisfaction and organisation commitment. Lastly, it highlights the importance of the mentioned scientific contributions.