In the organizational sciences (e.g., organizational behavior, organizational psychology), one of the more misunderstood terms is “organizational the… - Steve M. Jex

Job satisfaction is typically defined as an employee’s level of positive affect toward his or her job or job situation... Along with positive affect, we can add both a cognitive and a behavioral component to this definition... The cognitive aspect of job satisfaction represents an employee’s beliefs about his or her job or job situation; that is, an employee may believe that his or her job is interesting, stimulating, dull, or demanding—to name a few options... The behavioral component represents an employee’s behaviors or, more often, behavioral tendencies toward his or her job. An employee’s level of job satisfaction may be revealed by the fact that he or she tries to attend work regularly, works hard, and intends to remain a member of the organization for a long period of time.

Like role ambiguity, the assessment of role conflict has been primarily through self-report measurement. The scale that has been used most often is that developed by Rizzo et al. (1970). These items ask respondents whether they experience things such as “incompatible requests” and situations in which their work is “accepted by one group but not accepted by others.” A sample item from this scale is, “I receive incompatible requests from two or more people.” Strong agreement with a statement such as this indicates a high level of role conflict. Like the Rizzo et al. role ambiguity scale, this scale has also been the focus of much criticism and debate in the occupational stress literature (Kelloway & Barling, 1990, Netemeyer et al., 1990; Smith et al., 1993; Tracy & Johnson, 1981). Unfortunately, there have been few attempts to develop alternative measures.

The earliest scientific investigations related to the field of occupational stress were conducted by the well-known physiologist in the early part of the twentieth century (e.g., Cannon, 1914). Cannon was a pioneer in the investigation of the relationship between emotions and physiological responses, and is perhaps best known for having coined the term homeostasis.