The TQM Journal

Emerald Article: The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen, Henrik Gjesing Antvor

Article information:
To cite this document: Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen, Henrik Gjesing Antvor, (2010),"The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture", The TQM Journal, Vol. 22 Iss: 4 pp. 369 - 378 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542731011053299 Downloaded on: 21-01-2013 References: This document contains references to 30 other documents To copy this document: [email protected] This document has been downloaded 5145 times since 2010. *

Users who downloaded this Article also downloaded: *

Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen, Henrik Gjesing Antvor, (2010),"The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture", The TQM Journal, Vol. 22 Iss: 4 pp. 369 - 378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542731011053299 Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen, Henrik Gjesing Antvor, (2010),"The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture", The TQM Journal, Vol. 22 Iss: 4 pp. 369 - 378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542731011053299 Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen, Henrik Gjesing Antvor, (2010),"The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture", The TQM Journal, Vol. 22 Iss: 4 pp. 369 - 378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542731011053299

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY For Authors: If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com With over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm

The relationship between job satisfaction and national culture

Jacob Eskildsen and Kai Kristensen
Department of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark, and

Job satisfaction and national culture 369

Henrik Gjesing Antvor

Ennova A/S, Aarhus, Denmark
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to focus on the relationship between job satisfaction and national culture. Many studies have reported differences in job satisfaction between countries but none has included national culture as a mediating variable. The paper seeks to attempt to do exactly that by relating data from the European Employee Indexe to Hofstedes national scores on ve dimensions of national culture. Design/methodology/approach The analysis covers 22 nations with a job satisfaction sample size of more than 25,000 respondents. The satisfaction data are subsequently related to Hofstedes national scores on ve dimensions of national culture. Findings The analysis demonstrates that national culture does inuence the result of job satisfaction studies. Research limitations/implications It is important to note that the managerial implications of these ndings are limited to some extent. A multinational company conducting job satisfaction studies in different national settings cannot inuence the scores on the cultural dimensions. There are no managerial actions that can be taken to eliminate the inuence that national culture has on a job satisfaction study. Practical implications The managerial consequences are that it is virtually meaningless to compare the results from a cross-national job satisfaction study without considering the impact that national culture has on the results. It would be much better to follow Demings advice on performance appraisal. According to this organizational units from different cultures should be evaluated in relation to their ability to improve job satisfaction instead of being compared without taking national culture into account. Originality/value The paper gives a theoretical explanation for the inuence that national culture has on national job satisfaction levels as well as on other evaluations of job-related aspects and conrms the theoretical considerations through empirical analyses. Keywords Job satisfaction, National cultures Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction The world market is becoming an increasingly complex place in which to operate for todays businesses putting up new demands for corporate information systems. Most information systems are based solely on accounting data and thus insufcient with respect to describing the companys general situation and future nancial health (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). The information systems of the future will include measures of intangibles such as customer and job satisfaction. These future information systems will require standardized methods for measuring intangibles (Kristensen and Westlund, 2001) and

The TQM Journal Vol. 22 No. 4, 2010 pp. 369-378 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/17542731011053299

TQM 22,4

370

this is already well underway in the eld of customer satisfaction through national indices such as ACSI in the USA and EPSI Rating in Europe. Less has happened in the eld of job satisfaction with respect to developing standardized measuring methods (Kristensen and Westlund, 2001) and most of the studies done on job satisfaction are limited to specic countries or even specic organizations. These studies report different and sometimes contradictory ndings with respect to the effect that employee characteristics such as gender, age and educational level have on intrinsic work motivation and job satisfaction (Clark et al., 1996; Finlay et al., 1995; Gaertner, 1999; Ganzach, 1998; Groot and Maasen van den Brink, 1999; Miles et al., 1996; Robie et al., 1998; Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza, 2000). Furthermore, these studies often report large differences in the level of job satisfaction between nations (Eskildsen et al., 2004b; Kristensen et al., 2002; Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza, 2000) and most of the time these differences are interpreted without taking into account that data are coming from very different cultural settings. The impact of national culture is mostly ignored in international job satisfaction studies. The aim of this paper is therefore to develop and test assumptions regarding the relationship between job satisfaction and national culture. The data for this analysis come from two different sources. First of all we draw upon data from The European Employee Indexe, which is a recent attempt to develop a standardized way to measure job satisfaction (Eskildsen et al., 2004a, b). The second source of data is Hofstedes scores on ve dimensions of national culture (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). The analysis will reveal whether or not national cultural characteristics play a role in determining differences in job satisfaction between countries. 2. Job satisfaction and national culture A classical denition of job satisfaction states that it is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job or job experience (Locke, 1976). In recent studies within the eld of job satisfaction a lot of different constructs have been included as predictors of job satisfaction but overall these constructs can be divided among ve main groups of characteristics of the job and work environment (Anderson and Martin, 1995; Boswell and Boudreau, 2000; Clark, 2001; de Jonge et al., 2001; Ducharme and Martin, 2000; Eskildsen and Kristensen, 2006; Eskildsen et al., 2004a, b; Gaertner, 1999; Howard and Frink, 1996; Kristensen et al., 2002; Law and Wong, 1999; Oshagbemi, 1999, 2000; Pollock et al., 2000; Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza, 2000; Susskind et al., 2000; Testa, 1999) as follows: (1) Organisational image. This area focuses on the perception of the organization in general and thus the effectiveness of the organizations employees branding initiatives. (2) Organizational vision. This area focuses on the cultural/ethical aspects of the organization, the ability of corporate management to make sound decisions as well as to inform the employees about the state and direction of the organization. (3) Superiors. This area focuses on the relationship that the employee has to the immediate manager i.e. the perceived professional and leadership skills of the manager.

(4) Co-workers. This area focuses on the social climate among the co-workers, the degree of professional cooperation as well as the sense of social belonging. (5) Conditions of work. This area focuses on the job content, the physical work environment, job security, the pay and benet package, in other words all of the aspects of the job itself when perceived as isolated from the social and cultural context. Most international companies are measuring job satisfaction in order to improve the organizations HR and leadership capabilities. In most instances the organization ends up with results that shows that job satisfaction varies across the countries in which the organization is operating. But does this really mean that the organizational units are performing differently or does the national culture in which the unit is operating inuence job satisfaction? Several international studies have reported national differences with respect to the level of job satisfaction (Eskildsen et al., 2004b; Kristensen et al., 2002; Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza, 2000). The national differences reported are comparable across studies so it does seem that there is an exogenous national factor inuencing the level of job satisfaction in an individual country. One attempt at describing the differences between nations is Hofstedes theory on national culture. According to Hofstede differences between nations can be attributed to differences along the following ve dimensions of national culture (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005): (1) power distance (PDI); (2) individualism (IDV); (3) masculinity (MAS); (4) uncertainty avoidance (UAI); and (5) long-term orientation (LTO). The rst dimension, power distance, describes the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. The second dimension, individualism, describes the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. The third dimension, masculinity, describes the distribution of roles between the genders. Predominantly masculine societies are assertive and competitive whereas predominantly feminine societies are modest and caring. The fourth dimension, uncertainty avoidance, describes the degree to which a society possesses tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. The fth and nal dimension, long-term orientation, describes the degree to which a society can be said have a Confucian heritage. Societies with long-term orientation possess thrift and perseverance whereas societies with short-term orientation are oriented towards steadiness, stability and tradition. Differences along these ve dimensions may be some of the exogenous factors causing national job satisfaction levels to be different. The rst assumption, A1, to be tested in the following is therefore:

Job satisfaction and national culture 371

TQM 22,4

A1. National job satisfaction levels are inuenced by Hofstedes cultural dimensions. The ve cultural dimensions may also inuence the evaluations of other job related aspects from the reputation of the employer to the willingness of the respondents to stay employed by the organization. The second assumptions, A2, to be tested in the following is therefore: A2. All evaluations of job related aspects are inuenced by Hofstedes cultural dimensions. The following sections will introduce the empirical data material and report the ndings of the analyses. 3. Empirical data The assumptions listed previously are tested on the basis of data from the European Employee Indexe, which is an index that was launched in August 2001 and is conducted by the independent market research company Ennova. The questionnaire contains generic questions that could be answered by any employee irrespective of industry, education, trade, etc. In the questionnaire the respondents were asked to evaluate all aspects of their job from the reputation of the employer to their willingness to stay employed by the organization. The survey also contained a number of questions regarding personal and other characteristics such as age, education, size of the company, and whether or not the respondent was holding a managerial position. In order to ll in the questionnaire the respondent had to meet the following criteria: . be employed, but not self-employed; . work at least 25 hours a week for the same employer; and . be at least 18 years old. If several members of the household fullled the criteria, the person whose birthday passed most recently was asked to complete the questionnaire. The model behind the European Employee Indexe is shown in Figure 1.

372

Figure 1. The European Employee Indexe

All the constructs in Figure 1 are seen as latent constructs and are conceptualized through at lest two manifest variables. The model is estimated through the use of partial least squares (PLS). PLS is a preferable technique when conducting structural equation modeling on the basis of questionnaire data (Kristensen and Eskildsen, 2005, 2009). The data used in this study were collected in 2008 and 2009. A total of 25,411 respondents from the following 22 countries participated (the sample size in the individual county is shown in parentheses): (1) Denmark (4,814); (2) India (531); (3) Norway (5,119); (4) Brazil (580); (5) Finland (756); (6) The Netherlands (506); (7) USA (526); (8) Sweden (4,816); (9) Germany (580); (10) Russia (516); (11) Estonia (516); (12) China (555); (13) Spain (607); (14) Italy (587); (15) Japan (584); (16) Poland (589); (17) Czech Republic (587); (18) Great Britain (698); (19) France (529); (20) Ireland (804); (21) Mexico (332); and (22) Hungary (279). Job satisfaction levels for all 22 countries included in the study are reported in Figure 2 on a 0 to 100 scale where 0 indicates the lowest possible score and 100 the highest possible score. The ranking of the 22 shown in Figure 2 is not unique to this study. A study from 1997, including 21 countries, by Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza (2000) reported very similar ndings. It thus appears as if the ranking shown in Figure 1 is not a study specic result but reects a more universal underlying phenomenon. This phenomenon may be national cultural characteristics and the second source of data is thus Hofstedes scores on the ve dimensions of national culture. The 22

Job satisfaction and national culture 373

TQM 22,4

374

Figure 2. National job satisfaction levels

countries from the job satisfaction study mentioned above varies a lot on the ve dimensions (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). An indication of this variation is given in Table I where the lowest and highest scoring countries on the ve dimensions are reported (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). 4. Empirical results In order to test the two assumptions put forward previously multiple regression has been conducted with the national scores on the ve cultural dimensions as explanatory variables. All the results shown in the following are signicant at the 10 percent level. The result from the multiple regression with job satisfaction as dependent variable is shown in Table II.
PDI Min Max Denmark Russia 18 93 IDV China USA 20 91 MAS Sweden Japan 5 95 UAI Denmark Russia 23 95 LTO Czech Republic China 13 118

Table I. Scores on Hofstedes ve cultural dimensions

Satisfaction PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO R2 Note: *denotes insignicant coefcients; the level of signicance is 10 percent
* *

20.103 20.092
*

Table II. Results from multiple regression

0.414

As Table II indicates the masculinity and uncertainty avoidance dimensions play a role in determining the level of job satisfaction in an individual country. The more masculine a society is and the more it tends to avoid uncertainty the lower job satisfaction tend to be. A1 is therefore conrmed which means that Hofstedes cultural dimensions inuence national job satisfaction levels. The next thing to be tested is whether or not Hofstedes cultural dimensions inuence the evaluation of the other job related areas shown in Figure 1. The results of the multiple regressions with all of these areas as dependent variables are shown in Table III. As Table III indicates, individualism is the only cultural dimension that is not related to any of the evaluations of job related aspect. Furthermore the national level of evaluations with respect to reputation and immediate superior are not related to the ve cultural dimensions. A2 is therefore not conrmed. It is, however, evident that the dimensions of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance are the most inuential dimensions when it comes to national level of evaluations of job-related aspects, although power distance and long-term orientation play a role in certain situations. If a society score high on power distance and low on uncertainty avoidance the higher senior management will be evaluated. The same goes for cooperation but here a low score on masculinity would also result in a higher evaluation. The evaluation of daily work and motivation is only inuenced by the masculinity dimension. The less masculine a society is the higher the score on daily work and motivation. Remuneration and retention, on the other hand, are inuenced by masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. The lower the score on these three dimensions that higher the score on remuneration and retention will tend to be. Development exhibits the same relationship as job satisfaction whereas commitment is inuenced only by uncertainty avoidance. All in all, Hofstedes ve cultural dimensions do play a role when interpreting national differences from a job satisfaction study.

Job satisfaction and national culture 375

PDI Reputation Senior management Immediate superior Co-operation Daily work Remuneration Development Motivation Commitment Retention
*

IDV
* * * * * * * * * *

MAS
* * *

UAI
*

LTO
* * * * *

R2
*

0.094
*

20.152
*

0.367
*

0.093
* * * * * *

20.116 20.077 20.110 20.076 20.133

*

20.080
*

20.126 20.082
*

20.072
* * *

20.099

20.085 20.110

20.080

0.587 0.162 0.694 0.380 0.247 0.145 0.583

Note: *denotes insignicant coefcients; the level of signicance is 10 percent

Table III. Results from multiple regressions

TQM 22,4

376

Concluding remarks This article has investigated the possible inuence of national culture on national job satisfaction levels as well as on other evaluations of job related aspects. For the analysis the article used data from The European Employee Index from 2008 and 2009 as well as scores in Hofstedes ve dimensions of national culture. The analyses revealed that national culture does inuence the national level of job satisfaction but not all national level evaluations of job related aspects. It is important to note that the managerial implications of these ndings are limited to some extend. A multinational company conducting job satisfaction studies in different national settings cannot inuence the scores on the cultural dimensions. There are no managerial actions that can be taken to eliminate the inuence that national culture has on a job satisfaction study. The important lesson for management is that extreme caution is needed when comparing the results from a cross-national job satisfaction study. Units from different cultural settings cannot necessarily be compared directly without taking natural culture into account.

References Anderson, C.M. and Martin, M.M. (1995), Why employees speak to coworkers and bosses: motives, gender and organizational satisfaction, The Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 249-65. Boswell, W.R. and Boudreau, J.W. (2000), Employee satisfaction with performance appraisals and appraisers: the role of perceived appraisal use, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 283-99. Clark, A.E. (2001), What really matters in a job? Hedonic measurement using quit data, Labour Economics, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 223-42. Clark, A., Oswald, A. and Warr, P. (1996), Is job satisfaction U-shaped in age?, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 57-81. de Jonge, J., Dormann, C., Janssen, P.P.M., Dollard, M.F., Landeweerd, J.A. and Nijhuis, F.J.N. (2001), Testing reciprocal relationships between job characteristics and psychological wellbeing: a cross-lagged structural equation model, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 74 No. 1, pp. 29-46. Ducharme, L.J. and Martin, J.K. (2000), Unrewarding work, coworker support, and job satisfaction, Work and Occupations, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 223-43. Eskildsen, J.K. and Kristensen, K. (2006), Enhancing importance-performance analysis, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 55 No. 1, pp. 40-60. Eskildsen, J.K., Kristensen, K. and Westlund, A. (2004a), Work motivation and job satisfaction in the Nordic countries, Employee Relations, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 122-36. Eskildsen, J.K., Kristensen, K. and Westlund, A.H. (2004b), Measuring employee assets, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 10 No. 5, pp. 537-50. Finlay, W., Martin, J.K., Roman, P.M. and Blum, T.C. (1995), Organizational structure and job satisfaction, Administration & Society, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 427-50. Gaertner, S. (1999), Structural determinants of job satisfaction and organizational commitment in turnover models, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 479-93.

Ganzach, Y. (1998), Intelligence and job satisfaction, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 526-39. Groot, W. and Maasen van den Brink, H. (1999), Job satisfaction of older workers, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 20 No. 6, pp. 343-60. Hofstede, G. and Hofstede, G.J. (2005), Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Howard, J.L. and Frink, D.D. (1996), The effects of organizational restructure on employee satisfaction, Group & Organization Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 278-303. Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P. (1996), The Balanced Scorecard, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Kristensen, K. and Eskildsen, J.K. (2005), PLS structural equation modelling for customer satisfaction measurement: some empirical and theoretical results, in Bliemel, F.W., Eggert, A., Fassott, G. and Henseler, J. (Eds), Handbuch PLS-Pfadmodellierung Methode, Anwendung, Praxisbeispiele, Schaffer-Poeschel, Stuttgart, pp. 5-24. Kristensen, K. and Eskildsen, J.K. (2009), Design of PLS-based satisfaction studies, in Vinzi, V.E. (Ed.), Handbook of Computational Statistics PLS and Marketing, Springer Verlag, New York, NY. Kristensen, K. and Westlund, A.H. (2001), Management and external disclosure of intangible assets, European Quality, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 60-4. Kristensen, K., Westlund, A.H. and Eskildsen, J.K. (2002), Job satisfaction across industries, paper presented at the 3rd International Conference of the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organizational Excellence, Ayr, September 11-13. Law, K.S. and Wong, C.-S. (1999), Multidimensional constructs in structural equation analysis: an illustration using the job perception and job satisfaction constructs, Journal of Management, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 143-60. Locke, E. (1976), The nature and consequences of job satisfaction, in Dunette, M.D. (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Rand-McNally, Chicago, IL, pp. 1297-349. Miles, E.W., Patrick, S.L. and King, W.C. (1996), Job level as a systemic variable in predicting the relationship between supervisory communication and job satisfaction, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 69 No. 3, pp. 277-92. Oshagbemi, T. (1999), Overall job satisfaction: how good are single-versus multiple-item measures?, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 388-403. Oshagbemi, T. (2000), Satisfaction with co-workers behaviour, Employee Relations, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 88-106. Pollock, T.G., Whitbred, R.C. and Contractor, N. (2000), Social information processing and job characteristics, Human Communication Association, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 292-330. Robie, C.R., Ryan, A.M., Schmeider, R.A., Parra, L.F. and Smith, P.C. (1998), The relation between job level and job satisfaction, Group & Organization Management, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 470-95. Sousa-Poza, A. and Sousa-Poza, A.A. (2000), Wellbeing at work: a cross-national analysis of the levels and determinants of job satisfaction, Journal of Socio-Economics, Vol. 29 No. 6, pp. 517-38. Susskind, A.M., Borchgrevink, C.P., Kacmar, K.M. and Brymer, R.A. (2000), Customer service employees behavioral intentions and attitudes: an examination of construct validity and a path model, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 53-77.

Job satisfaction and national culture 377

TQM 22,4

Testa, M.R. (1999), Satisfaction with organizational vision, job satisfaction and service efforts: an empirical investigation, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 154-61. About the authors Jacob Eskildsen is Professor in the Department of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark. Jacob Eskildsen is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Kai Kristensen is Professor in the Department of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Aarhus V, Denmark. Henrik Gjesing Antvor is Executive Adviser at Ennova A/S, Aarhus, Denmark.

378

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints