This chapter could be considered as an attempt to clarify the relationship between workplace arrogance and job satisfaction. Thus, the authors examine and study this relationship by focusing on the role of self-esteem between these two concepts. Hence, the main result of this theoretical study is that workplace arrogance is negatively related to job satisfaction. Although this finding could be considered as a theoretical contribution, more studies are requested to investigate the specific relationship between workplace arrogance, self-esteem, and job satisfaction with its two dimensions: extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Does self-esteem play a mediated or moderated role in this relationship?
TopJob Satisfaction
According to Sypniewska (2013), the concept of “satisfaction” originated in the work of Maslow and Herzberg, who are considered the founders of the Human Relations School. In fact, the economic crisis of 1929, with its social, economic and political realities, contributed to a strong rethinking of the postulates of total rationality that had prevailed up to that moment and gave birth to a new tendency of thought which has raised a set of useful questions to understand the functioning of organizations, such as the emergence of informal structures and their impact on formal structures, interpersonal power systems, the importance of statutes, …
The studies of these researchers tend to show that employee has complex motivations and not only reacts to the attraction of gain. Indeed, some intrinsic motivations for valuation can lead to qualitative and quantitative performances superior to those obtained by the principle of authority developed by Taylor.
Thus, in 1954, Maslow proposed the ranking of human needs in the form of a pyramid (the pyramid of Maslow) composed of five levels: physiological needs; safety needs; social needs; esteem needs and the self-actualization needs. In addition, Maslow (1954) proposed the idea that a need that is not satisfied would be a source of motivation until it is satisfied. Thus, the individual will seek to satisfy higher needs and so on.
Maslow described both the organization and functioning of motivations. So in the firm, why continue to offer safety when employees consider having it already by their professional status? It is preferable to try to develop rewards centered on belonging and social integration in the firm. Conversely, how can we expect motivated behavior by offering esteem or decoration to employees who consider that they are underpaid given their expense? Thus, it is necessary to begin by guaranteeing the basic needs and safety before being able to play on the grounds of the top of the pyramid.
In the 1960s, Herzberg, to complement Maslow’s theory, sought to identify what are the sources of satisfaction and those which are sources of dissatisfaction. To do this, he conducts several studies in companies based on the “critical incidents” method. This method involves asking employees to remember the professional events in which they felt satisfied or dissatisfied, and then to describe the impact of this feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction on their efficiency, their relationships with others and with themselves. Following this study, Herzberg was able to distinguish two types of factors: the former are sources of satisfaction and the latter are sources of dissatisfaction.
In other words, this means that: