10.1177/1059601104269522 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT Mason, Griffin / GROUP TASK SATISFACTION Group Task Satisfaction The Group’s Shared Attitude to its Task and Work Environment CLAIRE M. MASON MARK A. GRIFFIN Queensland University of Technology Group task satisfaction has been conceptualized as the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction and represents the group’s shared attitude toward its task and work environment. This study investigated whether group task satisfaction would explain incremental variance in organizational citizenship behaviors, group performance, and absenteeism norms, after the vari- ance explained by aggregated individual job satisfaction and group affective tone was taken into account. Survey data were collected from 66 work groups and 51 supervisors. Measures of group task satisfaction explained unique variance in ratings of citizenship behavior and absenteeism norms but did not explain unique variance in ratings of group performance. Our findings support the validity and utility of group task satisfaction and illustrate the importance of assessing group- level constructs directly. Keywords: group task satisfaction; job satisfaction; group affective tone; group attitudes Group task satisfaction describes the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction and represents the group’s shared attitude toward its task and work environment. Although researchers have previously investigated job satisfaction at the group level of analysis, they have not assessed group satis- faction directly. Typically, researchers have aggregated group members’ individual job satisfaction ratings (Hecht & Riley, 1985; Lester, Meglino, & Korsgaard, 2002; Schoenecker, Martell, & Michlitsch, 1997; Van der Vegt, Emans, & Van de Vliert, 2001). However, when group-level constructs are measured indirectly, through individual-level constructs, emergent proper- ties and effects for the group-level construct may not be identified (Chan, 1998; Kirkman, Tesluk, & Rosen, 2001). In this study, we investigated the nature of group task satisfaction and its relationship to group outcomes. Group & Organization Management, Vol. xx No. x, Month 2004 1-28 DOI: 10.1177/1059601104269522 © 2004 Sage Publications 1