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?
- Investigate whether teachers and professors in education sector in Pakistan are satisfied from their job or not.
- Investigate the relationships between Five Factors of Personality, Intelligence, Effective Working Conditions and Compensation plans and employee job satisfaction at workplace.
- 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.
- Personality
- Ability
- Working Conditions
- Compensation plans and
- 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
|
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