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Paul E. Spector. Job Satisfaction: Application, Assessment, Causes, and Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997, 96 pages, $39.95 hardcover, $18.95 softcover.
Reviewed by Allen Kraut, Professor of Management, School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, NY.
This is a slim book of modest ambitions that are actually well fulfilled. As the author writes in his concluding remarks, "the serious student of this topic should consider this book as the initial introduction to the job satisfaction literature." This volume is indeed a serviceable beginning for those who want to get a useful overview of the topic, although it may hold less interest for people who have already moved beyond that starting point.
There is a great interest in job satisfaction and the number of studies on the topic is extraordinary. Spector notes over 7,000 research studies have been reported on job satisfaction and over 300 new articles on the topic are published every year. Any author describing such a field has a huge task. The presentation must be simplified, but then runs the risk of being made overly simple.
This risk is illustrated in the surprisingly basic definition offered of job satisfaction as "the degree to which people like their jobs." This notion of being clear and uncomplicated is followed a few pages later by a reiteration, job satisfaction is simply how people feel about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs. [It]. .. can be considered as a global feeling about the job or as a related constellation of attitudes about various aspects or facets of the job.
Although a lucid and direct view of job satisfaction is welcome, Spector takes no note of other ways to look at the concept. Several scholars, for example, define job satisfaction as a feeling determined by the difference between the valued outcomes received and those that are expected (Cranny, Smith, & Stone, 1992). Still, the author's simplicity of conceptual definition may be a...