Job Satisfaction and Its Determinants: a Systematic Review

Job satisfaction and its determinants: a systematic review

Nafisa Talukder

1. Introduction

Job satisfaction is a state of mind which comes from the appraisal and motivations from the work place. Many things determine whether an employee is satisfied with his/her job or not. Work-loads, work schedule, job security, job position and much more things are responsible to make the employees be satisfied for their job.

Researches have showed that internal locus of control and the way an individual perceives actually determines job satisfaction. And at the same time other researchers showed that organizational citizenship behaviour effects job satisfaction also.

The importance of job satisfaction is very high in employers’ life. One study stated that dissatisfied workers suffer from greater degree of stress and strain as compared to the satisfied workers (Khaleque, 1993).

There are so many determinants which improves job satisfaction. Improving work environment and reducing job stress can actually improve production which helps the industries to earn more and this actually improves job satisfaction among employees and managers.

Organizational citizenship behaviour also helps to strengthen job satisfaction within employees. This satisfaction actually exaggerates organizational commitment. The working place and the sex of the worker sometimes change the perception towards job factors. The ownership of the company or work place also influences it.

In summary, studies on job satisfaction have showed lots of determinants that influence a worker’s satisfaction towards his/her job. These determinants may have some changes among themselves according to the situation.

The objective of this review is to determine the determinants or pre-dominant factors of job satisfaction. By this review the organizational heads can determine the priority of the factors that can influence job satisfaction mong workers.

This review attempts to understand the impacts of determinants on job satisfaction and their work skill. More specifically, this review addressed the following questions:

What are the determinants that influence job satisfaction?
How these satisfaction effects work output?
What are the differences occur for different rate of job satisfaction?

1.1. The review

Table 1. Description of the studies

study

N

Design

variables

Statistical tests

results

IVs

DVs

Job satisfaction of the public and private school teachers

130

Cross-sectional

survey

The ownership of the schools

Job satisfaction of the teachers

Mean, standard deviation analysis

Job satisfaction is higher within public school teachers than provate school teachers

Influence of type of bank and sex on self-esteem life satisfaction and job satisfaction

160

Cross-sectional survey

Type of bank and sex

Self-esteem, life satisfaction and job satisfaction

Two way ANOVA

Self esteem and life satisfaction is higher within the private enterprises but sex-linked difference in job satisfaction

Exploring predictors of job satisfaction among industrial managers of different levels

300

survey

Different levels of managerial personnel

Job satisfaction

Multiple regression method

Job anxiety,organizational role stress and job involevement predicts job satisfaction within different levels of industrial managers

The implication of organizational citizenship behaviour on job satisfaction and organizational commitment

475

Questionnaire survey

Organizational c itizenship behavior

Job satisfaction and organizational commitment

Quantitative method

Organizational citizenship behaviour determines job satisfaction and organizational commitment

Locus of control and its relation to job satisfaction and job performance of the germant workers in Dhaka city

150

Questionnaire survey

Locus of control within the workers

Job satisfaction and job performance

Mean, standard error Pearson’s product-moment correlation and ANOVA

Internal locus of control helps to produce better job performance and higher job satisfaction

2. Methods and Search Strategy

A systematic review with narrative synthesis was applied to find out the determinants for job satisfaction. In order to find out the appropriate literature for the current systematic review, three abstracts from Department of Psychology in University of Dhaka were been reviewed . A number of studies were initially found, but according to the objective of the review all were not suitable. Abstracts of these literatures were reviewed and five articles from 4 journals were thoroughly reviewed.

2.1. Eligibility criteria

The article has to be original and not a review.
The article has to be useful to determine the determinants of job satisfaction
The article has to be published in any journal of Bangladesh.
The context of the article has to be from within the country.

3. Results

3.1. Information about the studies

For this review 4 original articles were selected based on the specific inclusion criteria. These articles were written by Bangladeshi authors. The sample of these studies covers employees from public and private owned industries, banks, garment factories and schools. A narrative synthesis approach has been used to summarize the observations.

3.2. Job satisfaction within public and private work places

It was found that employees from public sectors were more satisfied with their jobs then employees from private sectors. The explanation for this result is that the employees feel more secured about their jobs in the public sectors than the private sectors.

3.3. Job satisfaction and sex difference

Different researches have significant results on the job satisfaction within male and female employers. While working in a school or educational institute the rate of job satisfaction is higher within female employees rather than the male employees. But in Banks the ratio gets changed. The explanation for this finding is the lower expectation of female employees within Bangladesh’s socio-economic system and the different work load within these two work places.

3.4. Job satisfaction within different levels

In different levels of workers the determinants for job satisfaction are different. While in top and middle level job satisfaction depends on job anxiety, organizational role stress and job involvement. But in the lower level job satisfaction can be determined by organizational role stress and job anxiety.

3.5. Locus of control and job satisfaction

Job satisfaction and job performance are significantly correlated to internal locus of control. Differences of sex and marital status influences locus of control. Internal locus of control tends to produce a better job performance and a high level job satisfaction than externals.

3.6. Sample characteristics and their selection

All these studies selected people who work for their living. No housewife or unemployed people were considered as sample unit here. Most of the sample unit has been selected from Bangladesh and the authors were Bangladeshi too. So, these type of sampling suffers from adequate generalization. All of these samples are derived from natural setting. So, there wasn’t any controlled group. This assures a natural finding as well.

4. Conclusion

All these articles on job satisfaction actually show that there are so many determinants that manipulate job satisfaction. Job performance is the main output of job satisfaction. There have been so many contradict results too. For example, in schools we can see that while working in a public institute teachers get more satisfaction towards their job than private schools but in banks private ownership is more appreciated then public sector. These differences exist because of the priority within the questioners and the differences of thoughts and objectives within these two work places.

Another difference between the results appear where differences of sex were been discussed. Female workers have lower expectation than males but changing of marital status and work place manipulates the rate of job satisfaction.

The influence of internal or external locus of control or self esteem is very hard to determine. So, the exact influence of these psychological factors couldn’t be determined at exact amount. Exaggerating survey sample can actually help in this regard

Further in-depth studies are needed to explore the determinants of job satisfaction. The importance of job satisfaction has been established to improve the job performance. So, to determine the determinants of job satisfaction some new tools should be introduced. And using a standard scale can also help the researchers to correlate the impacts of the variables.

A pre-determined scale or a systematic scale could have been used to determine the pre-dominant factors for job satisfaction. If it were been used then the review could have been made according to that scale.

In summary, there is not enough methodological support to determine the exact determinant of job satisfaction. But the mentioned factors can influence job performance deeply. So, these studies are really helpful for the future job performances.

References

Ellias, M.S. and Sorcar, N.R. (2005). Job satisfaction of the public and private school teachers. Dhaka university journal psychology,29,69-76

Karim, S.F. and Kabir, S.S. (2005). Influence of type of bank and sex on self-esteem life satisfaction and job satisfaction. Dhaka university journal psychology, 29, 41-52

Wadud ,N. (1997). Exploring predictors of job satisfaction among industrial managers of different levels. Bangladesh psychological studies, 7, 45-54

Mustaffa,C.S.B. and Rahman, W.R.A.(2006) The implication of organizational citizenship behaviour on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Bangladesh psychologist studies, 16, 47-66

Nirobe,M.N.N. and Hossain,A. (2008) locus of control and its relation to job satisfaction and job performance of the garment workers in Dhaka city. The Dhaka university journal of psychology, 32, 35-45