Tuesday 15 January 2013

A Research Proposal on Moderating Effect of Cultural Differences on Determinants of Job Satisfaction in Pakistan


Studying job attitudes at workplace is one the most researched topic and lies at the heart of organizational HR issues. A person can have a number of attitudes while Job satisfaction is the most important one in this respect and frequently used interchangeably. Job satisfaction can be defined as positive feeling at workplace about your job that results from evolution of its characteristics (Robinns et al., 2009). Many researchers have studied job satisfaction in different ways and tried to explore the potential sources of job satisfaction. Determining such determinants of job satisfaction helps to HR manageress to better manage their workforce as more satisfied employees increase productivity and the performance at both individual and organizational level. Moreover, many contingencies factors that act as moderating variables that change the relationship between job satisfaction and its potential determinants.

The purpose of current research is twofold. First I tried to explore the potential determinants of job satisfaction in term of personality, employee ability, compensation, working conditions and task characteristics. Second part of the research tries to explore the moderating effects of national, organizational and departmental culture on relationship between job satisfaction and personality, ability, compensation, working conditions and task characteristics. Moreover, to study these relations I choose education sector of Pakistan and select the sample of Teachers and Professors in this respect. Nature of cultural differences at universities and colleges and also at different departments stimulates to explore the potential determinants of job satisfaction under such cultural differences.

Job satisfaction significantly contributes positively to performance at individual and organizational level (Judge et al., 2001), organizational citizenship behavior (Paine & Bachrach, 2000), customer satisfaction (Griffith, 2001) and reduces employee turnover (Hackett & Guion, 1985) and absenteeism (Carsten & Spector, 1987). This implies that job satisfaction is an important construct that contribute positively to productivity that ultimately increases firms’ value. So, these positive relations stimulate researchers to study job satisfaction at workplace and find its potential determinants. Literature has evidenced a large number of determinants of job satisfaction. Most of the earlier researches concentrated on person-logical basis of job satisfaction and view the sources of construct in term of dispositional basis of job satisfaction as Hoppock (1935) found strong positive and significant relationship between employees’ emotions and their level of job satisfaction. Similarly Fisher and Hanna (1931) also conclude that emotional maladjustment contributes most significantly to job satisfaction. However, after 1980 a number of researches regarding job satisfaction change their dimensions and studied a broad array of traits to explore the determinants of job satisfaction. Nonetheless, most of these studies explore the relationship between personality traits and job satisfaction only without providing much theoretical explanation (Spector, 1997). On the other hand, researchers have identified thousands of personality traits that made it difficult to select appropriate person variables that should examine in term of job satisfaction.

Worker’s personality can be a vital source of job satisfaction at workplace. Five factor model of personality also called Big Five proposed by Goldberg (1990) is a famous and widely used tool that can be used to explain personality traits of a person. Many studies explore the relationship between personality in term of five factor model of personality and job performance or organizational psychology (Barrick & Mount, 1991) but few researches are found in term of job satisfaction in this respect. Big Five Model suggest following five personality traits that can successfully describe the personality of a person. In addition these studies try to explore one single personality trait especially Neuroticism of big five model with respect to job satisfaction.

These attributes cover the comfort level of employee. Extraversions people are more assertive, active, outgoing, prefer to be with people most of the time. These people are more enthusiasm and active and also enjoy others’ company but still value privacy.

These attributes refers to propensity of a person to defer to other. High agreeable persons eager to cooperate and try to avoid conflict with others and also are warm and trusting. McCrae and Costa (1991) suggested Agreeableness in term of happiness as people having such personality are more motivated to attain interpersonal intimacy that lead to higher level of well being. They also found that high agreeableness is positively related to life satisfaction.

It measures the reliability of person’s personality. High conscientious personality people are well organized, having high standards, dependable and strive to achieve their objectives. Organ and Lingl (1995) suggest that consciousness can be related to job satisfaction at work place as it refers to general tendency to involve in work and lead to high probability to gain both formal and informal rewards that can increase job satisfaction of employees. On the other hand low conscientious people are not well organized and do not care to plan and sometime are also careless.

It shows person’s ability to cater stress situation. Low Neurotic persons has more control over their emotions and are more emotionally stable while on the other hand High Neurotic persons are nervous, depressed and insecure. Due to their negative nature these people experience more negative events from their life than others (Megnus et al., 1993). This is because many times they foster themselves in every situation negatively. So, these negative states can also impact negatively on job satisfaction as people view themselves into negative situation that can impact their performances at workplace and lead to low job satisfaction as Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) reveal that there is negative relationship between person’s neuroticism personality trait and job satisfaction in their Meta analysis of job satisfaction.

These attributes refers to one’s choice of fascination and interests with originality. This personality trait is related to scientific creativity, innovation, divergent thinking and political liberalism (Feist, 1998; McCrae, 1996). Though these psychological states do not seems closely related to job satisfaction and affect directly but still indirect impact are possible especially when moderating with job nature.

Judge et al. (2002) have studied Big five model and job satisfaction is their Meta analysis. Their Meta Analysis results show that there is negative relation between job satisfaction and Neuroticism trait while other four personality traits reveal positive correlation in this respect. However openness to experience shows week correlation as expected. This study also tries to study personality traits and job satisfaction while moderating national, organizational and departmental culture in education sector. I argued that these cultural differences contribute significantly to the relationship between employee job satisfaction and his personality traits in term of five factors of personality.

Other area of research of current study is to study the impact of worker’s ability in term of intelligence to the job satisfaction. Intelligence is also an important correlate to many construct such as job performance, occupational attainment and education but researchers did not focus much on the relationship of job satisfaction and intelligence. However, Meulmann (1991) documents negative relation between worker’s intelligence and job satisfaction at workplace. His sample was young adults who join their first job after school. Similar results are found by another research that also document negative relation between intelligence and job satisfaction for 29 radar and sonar operators. Nonetheless, Gueutal (1990) found zero correlation between these two variables. Intelligence can affect job satisfaction because it is positively correlated to actual and their desired job complexity. This implies that person who is facing his desired job complexity is better able to perform those jobs that can lead to rewards and inner satisfaction and results to job satisfaction.

However, this relationship is also contingent to the organizational culture as demonstrated by O’Reilly et al. (1991). They proposed employee culture fit model and construct employee cultural fit index that consists of 54 cultural values in this respect. According to them employees wants organizational environment that fit according to their characteristics and intelligence is one of them. So, employees at desired complex job according to their intelligence are more satisfied from their job at workplace in organizational culture. We argued that ability and satisfaction relation is also contingent to national culture and departmental culture as literature has evidenced different cultural values within country level, organizational level and at departmental level as well.

Moreover, providing healthy and supportive working conditions also stimulates workers for better performance that can lead to high job satisfaction. Greater degree of support received from working condition, employee will be delighted to accomplish his tasks and also satisfied from his job. Another potential determinant of job satisfaction is compensation. Non-discriminate compensation plan that is according to their ability and fulfill their needs and wants stimulate them for high productivity and employee is more satisfied from his job as he is getting reward accordingly. This notion is also described by Equity Theory that demonstrates that employees compare their rewards and compensation from other within organization or outside the organization. In the case of difference they are de-motivated and less satisfies from their job.

A number of studies have explored job satisfaction in term of personality, intelligence, working conditions and compensation in Pakistan an around the world. However, less emphasis is given to education sector in this respect. Moreover, most of the studies target students for their sample and fewer studies are found related to faculty of teachers. This study fills the gaps in this respect and target teachers and professors at colleges and universities to study job satisfaction. Moreover, previous studies investigate personality, intelligence, working condition and compensation separately while I tried to combine these most important contributors of job satisfaction at one place. On the other hand studying cultural differences at national, organizational and departmental level also differentiate the current research from previous one. I try to investigate determinants of job satisfaction while moderating cultural differences and tried to explore who our independent variables act differently in the light of cultural values at national, organization and departmental level.

Industry Background:
Currently education sector in Pakistan is flourishing and a number of new institutions are adding in the system regularly. Reason behind this high growth is the people who are becoming more conscious and give importance to education. This growth also increases the demand of teachers and professors in education sector.

I want to explore the most important HR issue i.e. job satisfaction for teachers and professors at colleges and universities while considering cultural differences at national, institutional and departmental level. For this purpose research aims to study personality, ability, working conditions and compensation as independent variable. Big five model is used to investigate personality traits while ability is proxy by intelligence. Moreover, healthy and supportive working conditions along with non discriminatory compensation plans are studied in term of working conditions and compensation.

What are the potential determinants of job satisfaction in education sector of Pakistan in the case of Teachers and Professors?
Do cultural differences matter at national, institutional or departmental level while studding relationship between job satisfaction and its determinants?

  1. Investigate whether teachers and professors in education sector in Pakistan are satisfied from their job or not.
  2. Investigate the relationships between Five Factors of Personality, Intelligence, Effective Working Conditions and Compensation plans and employee job satisfaction at workplace.
  3. Investigate these cultural differences at national, organizational and departmental level as moderator in term of job satisfaction and its determinants.

H1: Five Factors of Personality, Intelligence, Effective Working Conditions and Compensation plans affects employee job satisfaction
H2: cultural differences at national, organizational and departmental level act as moderating variable for the relationship between Five Factors of Personality, Intelligence, Effective Working Conditions and Compensation plans and employee job satisfaction.

This section will demonstrate the research methodology that how I will conclude my research.

To conduct my research I will follow questionnaire technique. I will develop instrument in the form of questionnaire to analyze my required variables in this respect.

Current study will use cross sectional analysis and use benchmark technique to conduct my research.

To conduct my research I target sample education sector and choose teachers and professors as my sample in this respect. Education sector is flourishing in Pakistan that stimulates to investigate job satisfaction for the faculty members of these institutions in this respect. For this purpose I am targeting 10 universities and 20 colleges for data collection. For the purpose of data collection I am expecting 300 questionnaires to be filled from different teachers and professors.

As I am currently staying at UK so it is not possible for me to collect data and fill questionnaire directly from respondents. So, I will use internet as data collection source and send E-mail to selected respondent.
Dependent variables are the central focal point of the study and researchers want to investigate dependent variable. Dependent variable of the study is job attitudes and I use job satisfaction as the proxy of job attitude which is the most common used job satisfaction proxy in this respect. There are two ways to measure the job attitude. First is the direct way and you asking respondent that whether you are satisfied or not through a scale ranges from 1 to 5. 1 refers to highest number in job satisfaction while 5 refer no job satisfaction.
On the other hand independent variables act as the determinants of dependent variables and dependent variable can be affected positively or negatively by these independent variables. Current study uses following five independent variables.
  1. Personality
  2. Ability
  3. Working Conditions
  4. Compensation plans and
  5. Task Characteristics

Personality is one of the most important contributor to the job satisfaction as already has been discussed in detail. I use five factor personality model to investigate the impact of personality on job satisfaction in education sector for teachers and professors. These five factors are given below.
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Consciousnesses
Neuroticism and
Openness and expertise

Second independent variable of the study is the ability of the worker to perform that job. To analyze the impact of ability I use intelligence, Knowledge and experience in this respect. Intelligence is one of the most important variables that explore various relations such as job performance, productivity, education etc. However, less research is devoted to intelligence and job satisfaction but these two can be significantly related to each other. Moreover, knowledge can be measure through degree that teacher or professor has gain while experience can also increase ability to perform their job efficiently and effectively.

Healthy and supportive working conditions are positively related to job satisfaction. I use relations from other colleges and support from management to measure working conditions within the organization.
Compensation is also an important independent variable that explains the variations in job satisfaction. For this purpose we use two measures. One is salary while other is rewards. In order to measure salary I use difference of actual salary that employee is receiving and desired level of compensation of that employee.

I argued employees feel more satisfaction after completing their job effectively and efficiently. However, when a person given a task that is simple and less complex against their ability to work or a task is given that is more complex and difficult than his abilities then it is possible that he didn’t perform well. So, task is measured through its complexity against employee ability to perform that task.

Current study uses cultural differences at national, institutional or departmental level that can affect the relationship between job satisfactions.

For the purpose of analysis I will use SPSS 17 and AMOS in this respect. Moreover, descriptive statistics including frequency analysis will be conducted to reach at some conclusion. Furthermore, Structure Equation Modeling will be use to construct models of job satisfaction. For this purpose AMOS will be use to draw structure equation models.

This study will be completed within 3 months span of time with a starting date of 1-7-2011 to the end of 1-12-2011. Dissertation will be completed according to following schedule

DATE
Sections
1 Week
Data Collection
2 Weeks
Data Analysis
3 Weeks
Introduction of the study
2 Weeks
Literature Review
2 Weeks
Methodology and Results
1 Week
Concluding Remarks
1 Week
Final Submission

 References:

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Carsten J. M. & Spector P. E. (1987), “Unemployment, Turnover and Job Satisfaction: A Meta Analysis Test of the Muchinsky Model

Connolly, J. J., & Viswesvaran, C. (2000). The role of affectivity in job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 265–281

Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2, 290–309

Fisher, V. E., & Hanna, J. V. (1931). The dissatisfied worker. New York:Macmillan

Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216–1229.

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Meulmann H. (1991), “Well-being and career success during the transition from adolescence to adault status” Kolner-Zeitschrift-fur Soziolgie und Sozialpsychologie, Vol. 43:476-501

McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1991). Adding liebe und arbeit: The full five-factor model and well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 227–232.

McCrae, R. R. (1996). Social consequences of experiential openness, Psychological Bulletin, 120, 323–337

Organ, D. W., & Lingl, A. (1995). Personality, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 339–350

Paine J. B. & Bachrach D. G. (2000), “Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A critical review of Theoretical and empirical Literature and suggestion for future”, Journal of Management, Vol. 26(3):513-536

Robins S. P., Judge T. A. & Sanghi S. (2009), “Organizational Behavior”, 13 Ed

Spector, P. E. (1997). Job satisfaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

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