文献信息
文献标题：Factors Influencing Employee Job Satisfaction: A Conceptual Analysis（员工工作满意度影响因素的概念分析）
文献作者及出处：Hee O C, Yan L H, Rizal A M, et al. Factors Influencing Employee Job Satisfaction: A Conceptual Analysis[J]. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2018,8(6),331-340.
字数统计：英文3575单词，20442字符；中文6162汉字
外文文献
Factors Influencing Employee Job Satisfaction: A
Conceptual Analysis
Abstract As environment become increasingly dynamic, innovation is getting more and more important. The most effective sources of innovation are often ideas emerged from within an organization, usually from employees. High turnover and low productivity which badly affect an organization can be the result job dissatisfaction. Understanding the factors that contribute to job satisfaction is essential because it helps to identify the reasons and areas which employees are not satisfied with. Through this understanding, changes and adjustments of organizational policies, organization structure and job design can be altered to enhance the level of employee job satisfaction. This study only focused on three most common prevailing factors which are job stress, lack of communication, and pay that influence job satisfaction at workplace. Job stress has been generally defined as a factor which has negative impact on job satisfaction. The higher the stress level is, the more likely that an employee is not happy and not satisfied with his job. Lack of communication or bad communication dampens employees’ job satisfaction because employees tend to perform at a lower level when they feel neglected. Besides, lack of communication
can also lead to confusion between management and other employees throughout the organization which might incur frustration and resentment. Employees need to feel appreciated, as employees and as human. Employee’s job satisfaction and organizational retention rate can be boosted through a healthy compensation plan with room for bonuses and pay rises. Through the understanding of the factors, organizations can be aware of the symptoms beforehand and take precaution to support and increase the job satisfaction level of employees. In order for an organization to sustain and grow its business, job satisfaction is the long term solution for talent retention and increased performance and productivity.
Keywords: Employee Job Satisfaction, Perceived Stress, Lack Of Communication, Pay.
Introduction
The requirements of individuals have been changed due to the increase in quality of life and economic growth in the societies (Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007). Most individuals spend a large part of their lives at work; the change of requirements towards life has also changed their expectations, emotions and feelings towards their jobs (An, Cha, Moon, Ruggiero, & Jang, 2014). There is growing interest towards job satisfaction in organizations as employee job satisfaction is crucial to the success of any business. Improvements of job satisfaction have positive effect on employees’ motivation, performance, and productivity. These are important elements that an organization needs to maintain a competitive workforce in order to deal with challenges arise from the competitive business environment (Marzuki, Permadi, & Sunaryo, 2012). Job satisfaction is also directly related to a lower employee turnover rate, lower absenteeism rate, higher productivity, and better performances which are closely associated to the organization’s cost efficiency for business (Gazioglu & Tansel, 2006). The relationship between job satisfaction and performance was a relatively recent study which indicated that the degree of job satisfaction felt by employees determines their work performance. The study of the relationship between job satisfaction and performance validated the common belief that “a happy worker is
a productive worker” (Marzuki, Permadi, & Sunaryo, 2012). In this case, increasing and maintaining the degree of employee job satisfaction should be a priority for every employer (Gregory, 2011). Understanding the factors that contribute to job satisfaction is essential because it helps to identify the reasons and areas which employees are not satisfied with. Through this understanding, changes and adjustments of organizational policies, organization structure and job design can be altered to enhance the level of employee job satisfaction. There are numerous factors that might discourage the employees and lead to job dissatisfaction such as high stress, lack of organizational communication, lack of recognition, limited opportunity for personal and career growth, job characteristics, job security, pay, social relationship within an organization and many more. However, this study only focused on three most common prevailing factors which influence job satisfaction at workplace. The three factors discussed in this study were job stress, lack of communication, and pay. This study intends to establish a conceptual framework which contributes towards talent retention, increased performance and productivity in the dynamic business environment.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction refers to an employee’s emotional state which covers the complete range of emotions from positive to negative (Zhang, Yao, & Cheong, 2011). Thus, job satisfaction can also be defined as pleasantness or unpleasantness of employees during their work. Besides, job satisfaction can also be described as a positive feeling about a job or job experience (Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007). On the other hand, Fisher (2000) claimed that job satisfaction is a kind of attitude and attitudes generally contain two components which are affective component (feeling and emotional) and cognitive component (comparison, judgment and belief). Job satisfaction can be seen as the result of a chain reaction involving the motivation to satisfy a need. This chain combines several factors or motivators which will influence or induce an individual to perform (Marzuki, Permadi, & Sunaryo, 2012). Early theory of motivation developed by Maslow which is the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need
had provided ground for further studies on the factors that motivate human. The theory proposed that human motives are based on needs that start in an ascending order from the lowest level to the highest level. The hierarchy moves from lower level needs such as physiological needs, safety and security, social needs to higher level needs such as self-esteem and self-actualization needs. Individuals cannot move to the next higher level until all needs at the lower level are satisfied. When one set of needs is satisfied, it no longer served as a motivator (Marzuki, Permadi, & Sunaryo, 2012). Another theory which contributed to the related literature is the Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. This theory developed by Herzberg is also known as two-factor theory. Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory emphasized that satisfaction and dissatisfaction were two distinct variables which were not part of a single continuum. The opposite of job satisfaction is no job satisfaction; similarly the opposite of job dissatisfaction is no job dissatisfaction. Herzberg identified two groups of needs; motivators refer to human needs to achieve and experience psychological growth which are related to job such as recognition for achievement, promotion and etc. Another group which is called hygiene factor is referred to the basic human biological needs such as salary, security, working conditions and etc (Marzuki, Permadi, & Sunaryo, 2012). Hygiene factors determine the extent to which an employee can avoid job dissatisfaction (Zhang, Yao, & Cheong, 2011). In the literature, the importance of job satisfaction is often linked to work performance and organizational productivity or to other important work-related attitudes and behaviors—such as absenteeism, turnover, and reduction of litigation (Zhang, Yao, & Cheong, 2011). Refer to Branham (2005), Gallup studies reported that organizations with higher employee satisfaction achieved 86 percent customer ratings, 76 percent more success in lowering turnover, 44 percent higher profitability and 78 percent safety records. Thus employee happiness at work should be paid attention by the employers. Employee job dissatisfaction can bring disasters to an organization which badly affects the daily operation, such as lack of interest for their responsibilities, tardiness in showing up for work, mild to severe withdrawal from their jobs and diminishing job performance. All these may end up with employees leaving the
organization which cause high employee turnover in the organization (Gregory, 2011). Put in another way, employees who perceive their jobs as satisfactory are more likely to work and stay in the current jobs and in the current organization in the future. Otherwise, employees are more likely to leave and which in turn will influence the performance of the organization and its costs (Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007). Employers are faced with the task to motivate employees and create high job satisfaction among their employees. Thus, understanding of the factors which influence job satisfaction is essential for employers. Through the understanding of the factors, organizations will be able to make relevant changes to prevent employee frustration and low employee job satisfaction (Dawal & Taha, 2006). In this study, job satisfaction has been proposed as the dependent variable in the theoretical framework (Refer to Figure 1). The influence of the three factors (job stress, lack of communication, and pay) to job satisfaction would be discussed in the following sections.
Job Stress
Job stress is generally defined as “an employee’s feelings of job-related hardness, tension, anxiety, frustration, worry, emotional exhaustion, and distress” (Mahfood, Pollock, & Longmire, 2013). Refer to empirical studies (Lambert & Pauline, 2008; Mahfood, Pollock & Longmire, 2013), stress had been identified as one of the major factors that inversely related to job satisfaction. It was stated by Branham (2005) that at least 25 to 50 percent of employees are unable to work at their best due to stress, and this undeniably negatively influence their job satisfaction which subsequently leads to low productivity and high employee turnover. There are many causes which lead to job stress. For instance, insufficient organizational support in supplying tools necessary to perform a job efficiently would generate higher stress level especially when the employees are expected to perform at a required level. Besides, cost cutting practices through eliminating positions and disbursing the workload to other employees also contribute to increased job stress level. Employees would have to take on overbearing workload which erodes their personal time and the unreasonable amount of work would increase employees’ anxiety level tremendously. At the same
员工工作满意度外文文献翻译
