Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

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can be used to buffer the effects of job stressors, or whether and how they

should seek a more enriching job.

The dispositional approach suggests that working with a client toward the goal

of career satisfaction will not always be brief and uncomplicated; that is, it won’t

always be straightforward career counseling such as helping the client examine

values, skills, and aspirations and then exploring and planning to find a career

path that fits these values, skills, and aspirations. Specifically, clients who pres-

ent with job dissatisfaction and for whom assessment reveals underlying perva-

sive negative affectivity or certain specific dispositions, such as an external locus

of control or Type A style, may need to make major positive changes in disposi-

tion to obtain career satisfaction. How exactly this is done will depend on the

counselor’s theoretical orientation and is beyond the scope of this chapter.

As people change jobs, they tend to stay in similar work environments (e.g., see

Holland, Fritzsche, & Powell, 1994). Thus, the tendency to experience negative af-

fectivity may be a direct result of a long history of negative employment experi-

ences. Because of the close association between job satisfaction and satisfaction

with other life roles and overall life satisfaction, individuals in chronically dissat-

isfying jobs will likely need more extensive and longer term counseling than

other clients to develop and change dispositions.

Assessment may also need to be more extensive with clients presenting with

job dissatisfaction concerns. These clients may need not only more extensive job

characteristics and personality assessment but also person-environment fit as-

sessments at multiple levels of fit. Assessment of person-vocation fit using mea-

sures such as the Self-Directed Search (Holland, Powell, & Fritzsche, 1994) should

be accompanied by assessment of person-job and person-organization fit (see

Kristof, 1996) to better determine the specific source of the dissatisfaction. In ad-

dition, especially for female and ethnic minority clients, counselors should ex-

plore whether feelings of exclusion are part of their job dissatisfaction. Some

female and minority clients may be able to significantly improve their satisfac-

tion by finding a more inclusive organization in which to work.

Remembering that even Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” career

counselors who are trying to infer motives or meaning from their client’s behav-

ior should also keep in mind that, as the cognitive judgment model suggests, job

hopping may not always indicate job dissatisfaction. Those who job hop may be

gaining more information about alternatives with each job change. Thus, consider

that lack of information about alternatives, rather than dissatisfaction, may be the

cause of frequent job changes for some individuals. Moreover, absenteeism does

not necessarily mean that a client is dissatisfied with his or her job. Instead, a

closer exploration of the client’s values and life circumstances may help illumi-

nate the cause of the absenteeism as well as assist the counselor in working to-

ward amelioration of absenteeism.

Finally, counselors should keep in mind that job satisfaction and job perfor-

mance are both important outcomes for individuals, but they are not highly re-

lated to each other. Work on one of these areas does not necessarily generalize to,

or promote dramatic change in the other, and counselors should educate clients

about this as well. Clients, therefore, need to set specific and different goals when

desiring change in both of these areas because interventions to maximize each

will be different.

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Theories and Research on Job Satisfaction 197

SUMMARY

In future years, as the workplace changes due to rapid technological advances, in-

creasing workforce diversity, and global competition, keeping a pulse on individ-

uals’ job satisfaction will continue to be an important concern of both researchers

and practitioners. Thus, despite an already extensive literature on the topic of job

satisfaction, we expect that changes in how work is accomplished and how organ-

izations are structured will create an even greater need to study job satisfaction.

Alongside workplace changes, individuals are changing how they prepare for and

manage their careers. In the future, career counselors may see more clients who

are dissatisfied with their jobs because organizations poorly managed change or

because they have not adequately adapted their career strategies to keep up with

change. If change is rapid, individuals may also more often find themselves in

jobs that have changed in ways that no longer fit their skills or interests and need

the assistance of a career counselor to deal with the resulting dissatisfaction. This

chapter was designed to provide an introduction to theories and research on job

satisfaction so that career counselors are better prepared to assist clients with job

dissatisfaction issues.

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CHAPTER 9

Work Performance and Careers

Joyce E. A. Russell

HE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

is highly turbulent and complex today, and ca-

reers are dramatically changing. The traditional psychological contract in

which an employee entered a firm, worked hard, performed well, was loyal

and committed, and thus received even greater rewards and job security has been

replaced by a new contract based on continuous learning and identity change. In

short, the organizational career is dead, while the protean career or boundaryless

career is alive and flourishing (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Hall, 2002; Russell,

2003). Thus, the workplace has changed, and individuals are altering some of

their career-related attitudes and behaviors. With a greater interest in career de-

velopment by individuals and employers, counselors have never before faced so

many challenges in meeting the needs of employees.

This chapter takes the perspective that career counselors will want to help fa-

cilitate the effective performance of employees. To do this, counselors must un-

derstand what is meant by work performance as well as how it is measured. It is

also helpful if they are aware of the issues that face employees at various stages in

their careers and lives since these issues impact employees’ work performance.

Throughout the chapter, suggestions are offered for how counselors might be

able to assist employees.

DEFINING AND MEASURING WORK PERFORMANCE

Campbell (1991) defined work performance as behavior associated with the accom-

plishment of expected, specified, or formal role requirements on the part of indi-

vidual organizational members. Thus, work performance includes in-role

behavior that can be contingently tied to rewards. One framework that has histor-

ically been used to understand the components of performance follows (Steers,

Porter, & Bigley, 1996; Vroom, 1964):

Performance = Ability × Motivation (Effort)

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where:

Ability = Aptitude × Training × Resources

Motivation= Desire × Commitment

Thus, performance is the product of ability multiplied by motivation. Ability is

the product of aptitude (physical and mental capabilities a person brings to the

job) multiplied by training and resources (technical, personnel, political). Motiva-

tion is the product of an employee’s desire and commitment (persistence) to per-

form. Thus, motivation is defined in terms of the direction, intensity, and

persistence of individual effort (Campbell & Pritchard, 1976; Kanfer, 1991). The

multiplicative nature suggests that all elements are essential for performance to

exist. Thus, a person’s performance will be limited by his or her ability and moti-

vation (e.g., a person with low motivation yet high ability will not have high per-

formance and vice versa).

Although a person’s job performance depends on some combination of ability,

effort, and opportunity, it is often measured in terms of outcomes or results pro-

duced. Thus, performance has been defined as the record of outcomes produced

on a specified job function or activity during a specified time period (Bernardin,

Russell, & Kane, 2003). For example, college professors are typically evaluated on

three general work functions: research, teaching, and service. Performance in

each of these areas is defined with different outcome measures (e.g., research

publications, teaching ratings, service awards). Performance on the job as a whole

is equal to the sum or average of performance on the job functions or activities.

In recent years, some researchers have also broadened the construct of job

per

formance to indicate effective performance of not only relevant tasks, but also

contextual performance or organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs; Borman &

Motowidlo, 1997). These include extra-role behaviors or prosocial behaviors such

as altruism, courtesy, civic virtue, conscientiousness, protecting the organization,

and spreading goodwill (Turnley, Bolino, Lester, & Bloodgood, 2003). Today, most

researchers agree that performance is due to some combination of individual

level factors (e.g., ability, motivation) and system factors (e.g., job design, envi-

ronmental conditions, raw materials).

RITERIA

SED TO

EASURE

ERFORMANCE

In organizations, it is often difficult to measure individual performance since

work outcomes are a result of multiple interdependent work processes (Borman,

1991). Consequently, job performance has been conceptualized as an individual’s

overall performance or task proficiency or as performance on specific dimen-

sions. There are six primary criteria on which the value of performance may be

assessed (Bernardin et al., 2003, p. 147; Kane, 1986):

1. Quality: The degree to which the process or result of carrying out an activity

approaches perfection, in terms of either conforming to some ideal way of

performing the activity or fulfilling the activity’s intended purpose.

2. Quantity: The amount produced, expressed in terms such as dollar value,

number of units, or number of completed activity cycles.

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Timeliness: The degree to which an activity is completed, or a result

produced, at the earliest time desirable from the standpoints of both

coordinat

ing with the outputs of others and maximizing the time available

for other activities.

4. Cost-effectiveness: The degree to which the use of the organization’s re-

sources (e.g., human, monetary, technological, material) is maximized in

the sense of getting the highest gain or reduction in loss from each unit or

instance of use of a resource.

5. Need for supervision: The degree to which a performer can carry out a job

function without either having to request supervisory assistance or requir-

ing supervisor intervention to prevent an adverse outcome.

Interpersonal impact: The degree to which a performer promotes feelings of self-

esteem, goodwill, and cooperativeness among coworkers and subordinates.

These six criteria may differ in their relevance to specific job activities. In addi-

tion, there may be important interrelationships among the criteria. For example, a

manager may push his or her staff to produce as many products as fast as possible

(thereby meeting the criteria of quantity) but may end up sacrificing quality. For

any job, it is important to conduct a systematic job analysis to identify the critical

tasks that must be performed as well as the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed

to perform those tasks. This job analysis information can then be used to deter-

mine which criteria should be used to appraise an employee’s job performance.

In addition to the preceding six criteria, other researchers have suggested that

the qualities underlying job performance will change due to changes in the econ-

omy and business organizations. For example, Newell (2000) argued that because

of the emphasis on “knowledge management” (i.e., the way in which an organi-

zation creates, uses, and stores the expertise that underlies its products), sharing

knowledge will be a critical component of job performance. Thus, knowledge shar-

ing may be considered an important criterion for performance measurement.

ECHNIQUES

SED TO

PPRAISE OR

EASURE

ERFORMANCE

To understand employees’ views about their performance, it is important to ex-

amine how their performance is being measured in the organization. There are

numerous ways to measure performance, but, essentially, either more objective

measures (e.g., dollar sales, units produced) or more subjective measures (e.g.,

ratings or rankings by others) can be used. Both involve some degree of subjectiv-

ity and are vulnerable to the effects of contamination (measuring additional irrel-

evant aspects of performance) and deficiency (not measuring all important

aspects of performance). In addition, many of the techniques consider only a per-

son’s in-role job performance and typically fail to account for their contextual

performance (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior), yet this has been shown

to be critical to the success of the firm (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993).

With subjective measures, raters can make either comparisons of ratees’ perfor-

mance (e.g., paired comparisons or ranking employees from best to worst), com-

parisons among anchors (e.g., forced choice or using a bell-shaped curve such as

top 10%, middle 80%, bottom 10%, to assign people into categories), or compar-

isons of individuals to anchors on a scale (e.g., graphic rating scales, behav

iorally

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