Research Proposal On Job Satisfaction: Implications On Employee Loyalty

Job Satisfaction: Implications on Employee Loyalty

 

Introduction

The worker attitude of job satisfaction is clearly one of the most researched concepts in the business literature. Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have examined the various dimensions of the job satisfaction and the relationships between job satisfaction and a vast array of other variables. The amount of energy spent studying job satisfaction is implicitly based upon the idea that satisfied workers, at all organizational levels, are important contributors to an organization's effectiveness and ultimately to long-term success. Conversely, dissatisfied workers are implicitly thought to make less of a contribution to the organization.

For years, researchers (Iaffaldano and Muchinsky 1985) have disputed the extent to which increased job satisfaction leads to employee loyalty (Kim, 2002). laffaldano and Muchinsky (1985) conclude that the relationship has been only weakly manifested.

Several researchers (Ting 1996) have emphasized that individuals are loyal not only by their extrinsic needs, but also by positive job-related factors such as task clarity, skill utilization, task significance, and social interactions. Research shows that an accurate understanding of job tasks helps employees to reduce job uncertainty (Ting 1996). Studies also demonstrate that relationships with co-workers and supervisors affect job satisfaction (Emmert and Taher 1992).

As the 20th century winds down, predictions about the nature of the workplace in the new millennium have increased as anticipated (e.g., Boyett & Conn, 1991; Boyett with Boyett, 1995). Some aspects of the future workplace, e.g., change (more rapid), self-managed teams (more common), organizational structures (flatter), seem to be straightforward extensions of the 90s. However, for one workplace dimension, employee loyalty, the future is somewhat less predictable (Powers, 2000).

A typical observation during the last decade was that employee loyalty has eroded and is "continuing to slide" (Jackson, 1997). Downsizing, rightsizing, and reeingineering have resulted in layoffs, a concomitant reduction in employee loyalty (see The Economist, 1993; Moskel, 1993), and an urgency for organizations to "win back employee loyalty" (Osborne, 1991).

According to Reichheld (2001) unless leaders of an organization have built relationships on loyalty then nothing will keep staff and other stakeholders from jumping ship the instant a better opportunity comes along. This is likely to be reflected in the level of job satisfaction and staff retention rates, and involves staff being loyal to the organization and the organization being loyal to staff. Reichheld (2001) also states that true employee loyalty includes responsibility and accountability for building successful, mutually valuable relationships.

Recent research on job satisfaction and loyalty has contributed to conceptual and methodological advancements and has provided coherent, but largely independent, sets of knowledge. A next logical step is to explore the relationships between job satisfaction and employee loyalty. Though acknowledging potential relationships between job satisfaction, and loyalty, most studies to date have superficially addressed the issue or have examined the three constructs independently (Habits & Dimanche, 1997; Muehling, Laczniak, & Andrews, 1993; Pritchard, Howard, & Habits, 1992).

This proposed study seeks to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty. It shall illustrate the different aspects and categories of job satisfaction with that of employee loyalty using a multi-linear regression analysis. Furthermore, loyalty is seen as directly correlated with job satisfaction and vice versa.

Conceptual Framework

People who are unhappy at work can do a number of things. They can focus attention on their nonwork interests, doing nothing about their work situation (neglect). Satisfaction with various aspects of occupational experiences is as difficult to characterize as is satisfaction with other forms of everyday experiences (Cook et al. 1981). With increased awareness of the significance of employee job satisfaction, researchers have designed a number of instruments which attempt to measure employee attitudes, values and perceptions as they relate to occupational experiences. Such instruments include specific individual facets such as work, pay, promotions, co-workers and supervision, rather than global measures of employee satisfaction, so that explicit areas of low job satisfaction may be identified. This study shall be correlating employee satisfaction to their loyalty.

Statement of the Problem

            This proposed study seeks to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty. Job satisfaction has been correlated with several variables before however, there seems to a lack of research on its relationship with employee loyalty. This is partly because, employee loyalty is usually incorporated into organizational commitment. This study shall specifically address the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty.

            The following questions shall be answered:

1. What are the elements of job satisfaction?
2. What are the elements of employee loyalty?
3. What is the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty?
4. What are the implications of such relationship on the employees’ performance and that of the organization?

Hypothesis

            The following hypothesis shall be tested:

1. There is a significant relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty

Significance of the Study

            This study seeks to investigate the job satisfaction and employee loyalty relationship since the relationship had not been given focus by previous researches. This study shall specifically address the elements of job loyalty as against its relationship with job satisfaction. This can be useful in the formulation of programs that shall address loyalty and satisfaction issues in organizations.

Review of Related Literature

Employee loyalty (typically synonymous with commitment) to the organization has sometimes been viewed as an attitude (Meyer & Allen, 1991). However, it is not so much an attitude (or thought component) that is important in organizations, but rather it is the bottom-line action component. Some of these behaviors are simply prescribed aspects of the employee's written job description, e.g., working safely, adhering rules, following orders, maintaining quality of output, and taking care of company property. But other behaviors are based on unwritten policies or norms of the organizational culture, e.g., staying late to complete a project, participating in extracurricular activities, contributing to company charities, offering suggestions, and remaining with the organization.

Conversely, however, there appears to be significant skepticism about the actual demise of employee loyalty. In "The Employer-Worker Bond May Still Be Quite Strong" (The Wall Street Journal, 1998), a Sibson & Company (Raleigh, NC) study reported that nearly 80% of U.S. workers are committed to their employers and 66% believe their employers are supportive of their work efforts. Only 16% plan to leave their job within the next year.

Although researchers point out there is no consistent relationship between job satisfaction and individual performance (Iaffaldano and Muchinsky 1985), there is consistent evidence that low job satisfaction results in absenteeism, reduced commitment to organizations, turnover, and stress (Tett and Meyer 1993; Eby et al. 1999). Hence, it is important for researchers to clarify the factors affecting employees' job satisfaction in the context of organizational environment changes. This proposed study shall specifically look at loyalty among workers and its relationship with job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction has been defined as the "positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences" (Locke 1976). Therefore, job satisfaction emphasized the specific task environment where an employee performs his or her duties (Mowday, Porter and Steers 1982).

Also, worker attitudes, including satisfaction, are developed through interaction with other workers within the context of the work environment (Naumann, 1993). The context of the work environment is multidimensional with the major constructs being job/task characteristics, organization characteristics, and worker characteristics (Rousseau 1978). The interaction of these constructs collectively results in an environment unique to a particular organization and set of employees. Thus, the worker attitude of particular interest in this study, job satisfaction, may result from the expatriate's characteristics in interaction with the job/task characteristics and organizational characteristics.

Methodology

This section will discuss the method of research to be used, the respondents of the study, the sampling technique, the instrument to be used, the validation of the instrument, the administration of the of the instrument and the statistical treatment of the data that will be gathered.

Method of Research to be Used

This study will use the descriptive approach.  This descriptive type of research will utilize interview, observation and questionnaires in the study.  To illustrate the descriptive type of research, the researcher will be guided by Calmorin when he stated: “Descriptive method of research is to gather information about the present existing condition.  The purpose of employing this method is to describe the nature of a situation as it exists at the time of the study and to explore the cause/s of a particular phenomena.[i]

This study will the relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty. Job satisfaction has been correlated with several variables before however, there seems to a lack of research on its relationship with employee loyalty. The elements in the two variables shall also be evaluated.

This study shall use the JPS questionnaire in measuring Job Satisfcation. The Job Perception Survey (JPS) (Hatfield, Robinson, and Huseman 1985), is a 21-item semantic differential instrument, was used to assess individual satisfaction with five dimensions of jobs (work, pay, promotions, co-workers, and supervision). Internal reliability coefficients in the present study for the five semantic differential scales of the JPS ranged from 0.89 to 0.99 with a Cronbach alpha of 0.96 for the composite measure of satisfaction.

            The primary source of data will come from a researcher-made survey questionnaire which will be given to the respondents.  The respondents of this study will be randomly selected workers from a given company. 

            The secondary sources of data will come from published articles from business and psychology journals, theses and related studies on work dynamics.

For this research design, the researcher will gather data, collate published studies from different local and foreign universities and articles from social science journals, distribute sampling questionnaires; arrange interviews; and make a content analysis of the collected documentary and verbal material.  Afterwards, the researcher will summarize all the information, make a conclusion based on the null hypotheses posited and provide insightful recommendations on the dealing with job satisfaction and employee loyalty.

Respondents of the Study

The general population for this study will be composed of  sixty (60 ) workers in a given company

Validation of the Instrument

For validation purposes, the researcher will initially submit a survey questionnaire and after approval, the survey will be given to ten workers.  After the survey questionnaire will be answered, the researcher will ask the respondents for any suggestions or any necessary corrections to ensure further improvement and validity of the instrument.  The researcher will again examine the content of the survey questionnaire to find out the reliability of the instrument.  The researchers will exclude irrelevant questions and will change words that would be deemed difficult by the respondents, to much simpler terms.

Administration of the Instrument

4The revised instrument will then be administered to the respondents of the study which will be chosen through a combination of cluster and random sampling.  The researcher will exclude the ten respondents who will be initially used for the validation of the instrument.  The researcher will also tally, score and tabulate all the relevant data in the survey questionnaire.

 

References

Boyett, J.H., & Boyett, J.T. (1995). Beyond Workplace 2000. New York, NY: Plume.

Boyett, J.H., & Conn, H.P. (1991) Workplace 2000. New York, NY: Plume.

Cook, J., and T. D. Wall (1980), "New Work Attitude Measures of Trust, Organizational Commitment and Personal Need Non-Fulfillment," Journal of Occupational Psychology 53, 39-52.

Eby, Lillian T., Deena M. Freeman, Michael C. Rush, and Charles E. Lance. 1999. Motivational Bases of Affective Organizational Commitment: A Partial Test of an Integrative Theoretical Model. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 72(4): 463-83.

Emmert, Mark A., and Walied A. Taher. 1992. Public Sector Professionals: The Effects of Public Sector Jobs on Motivation, Job Satisfaction and Work Involvement. American Review of Public Administration 22(1): 37-48.  

Hatfield, J., R. B. Robinson, and R. C. Huseman (1985), "An Empirical Evaluation of a Test for Assessing Job Satisfaction," Psychological Reports 56, 39-45.

Habits, M. E., & Dimanche, F. (1997). Leisure involvement revisited: Conceptual conundrums and measurement advances. Journal of Leisure Research, 29, 245-278.

Iaffaldano, Michelle T., and Paul M. Muchinsky. 1985. Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin 97(2): 251-73.  

Jackson, M. (1997, Oct. 5). Businesses try to rekindle workers' loyalty. Fayetteville Observer-Times, ID.  

Kim, S. (2002) Participative management and job satisfaction: lessons for management leadership. Public Administration Review, Vol. 62.

Locke, Edwin A. 1976. The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. C. Dunnette, editor, Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, 1297-1349.

Moskal, B.S. (1993, Mar. 1). Company loyalty dies, a victim of neglect. Industry Week, 11-12.  

Mowday, Richard T., Lyman Porter & Richard Steers. 1982. Employee-organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. New York: Academic Press.

Muehling, D. D., Laczniak, R. N., & Andrews, J. C. (1993). Defining, operationalizing, and using involvement in advertising research: A review. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising; 15(1), 21-57.  

Naumann, E. (1993) Organizational predictors of expatriate job satisfaction. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 24.

Osborn, M. (1991, Sept. 17). 90's workers turning page on loyalty, USA Today, B1-B2.

Powers, E. (2000) Employee Loyalty in the New Millennium. SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 65. 

Pritchard, M. P. (1992). Development of the psychological commitment instrument for measuring travel service loyalty (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, 1991). Dissertation Abstracts International, 52, 680A.

Reichheld, F. 2001. Leadership for Loyalty Harvard Business Review 79(7): 76-84.  

Rousseau, Denise M. 1978. Characteristics of departments, positions, and individuals: Contexts for attitudes and behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 521-40.  

Tett, Robert P., and John P. Meyer. 1993. Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Turnover Intention, and Turnover: Path Analyses Based on Meta-Analytic Findings. Personnel Psychology 46(2): 259-93.

The Economist (1993, April). The death of corporate loyalty, 64.

The Wall Street Journal (1998, June 22). Employer-worker bond may be quite strong, 1.

Ting, Yuan. 1996. Analysis of Job Satisfaction of the Federal White-Collar Work Force: Findings from the Survey of Federal Employees. American Review of Public Administration 26(4): 439-56.

 

 

 

 

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