27.        I agree that job satisfaction is an important factor in determining whether a
company will be successful in the long term. However, other factors typically play just
as vital a role in the ultimate success or failure of a business. At the same time, job
security is becoming decidedly unimportant for many employees and, in any event,
often leads to substandard job performance.
      I agree that business success is more likely when employees feel satisfied with
their lobs. Employees who dislike the workplace or their jobs are not likely to reach
their potential performance levels; they may tend to arrive late for work, perform their
tasks in an unimaginative and sluggish manner, or take excessive sick leaves.
Nevertheless, a firm's long-term success may equally result from other factors such as
finding a market niche for products, securing a reputation for quality products and
services, or forming a synergistic alliance with a competitor. This list hardly exhausts all
the factors that can contribute to a firm's ultimate success, and no one of them—
including job satisfaction—is pivotal in every case.
      While job satisfaction clearly boosts employee morale and contributes to the
overall success of a company, the same cannot be said for job security. Admittedly an
employee worried about how secure his or her job is might be less creative or
productive as a result. By the same token, however, too much confidence in the security
of one's job can foster complacency, which, in turn, may diminish employees' creativity
and productivity. Moreover, many employees actually place job security relatively low
on the list of what they want in a job. In fact, more and more workers today are
positively uninterested in long-term job security; instead, they are joining firms for the
sole purpose of accomplishing near-term professional goals, then leaving to face the
next challenge.
      To sum up, the claim at issue overrates the importance of job satisfaction and
security by identifying them as the key factors in a company's long-term success. Job
satisfaction among employees is very important, but it is not clearly more important
than many other factors. At the same time, job security is clearly less important, and
even unimportant in some cases.