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CHAPTER 1
THE PROBLEM RATIONALE
1.1 Rationale
Both job satisfaction and organizational commitment influence nearly every
aspect of an organization. The term job satisfaction is understood to mean
everything from making all aspects of a job easy for employees to making the
job meaningful, significant and challenging (Scheid). It is a key factor that leads
to success in the world of corporations and is defined as, the extent to which
people like or dislike their jobs.
Todays success of organizations does not only depend on having skilled
and productive people but those that are interested in working for the company on
a long-term basis. OMalley in 2007 pointed out two major reasons to further
reinforce the importance of organizational commitment to companies. According
to him, it has become a necessity and it has become more and more difficult to
replace workers because of the negative effects of turn-over.
In the airline industry, companies depend completely on its people in
creating an advantage. Flight attendants, although exposed to work that involves
sleep deprivations, shifting schedules, emotional exhaustion, jetlag, long hours
and schedules during weekends and holidays, are still expected to provide the
highest quality of service and to make sure that each and every passenger that
they encounter are safe. All these antecedents may most likely contribute to the

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dissatisfaction of such employees and may affect their performance which will
eventually affect the company.
Knowing the importance of flight attendants not just for their hospitable
services but for the safety they provide the passengers, and given all the incidents
in the airline industry today, it will be of benefit to the respondent airlines to
further understand the current situation of job satisfaction and organizational
commitment of their employees so as to properly address these variables.

1.2 Research Impediments

The main focus of this study is to establish if there is a significant
relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment of flight
attendants in selected commercial airline companies in the Philippines in order to
provide materials for an enhancement program which can be further developed
into a tool to assist the human resource department of each selected commercial
airline companies in promoting job satisfaction and organizational commitment
among its flight attendants. This study however did not focus on each airline
individually but in general.
Respondents of this study are flight attendants working for the
participating airlines namely: PAL Express, Cebu Pacific, and Air Asia Zest.
The demographic variables are limited in terms of age, gender, civil status,
educational attainment, and length of service.
The period of study is from June 2013 January 2014.