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Effectively managing human resources in the organizations is a big concern both for HR managers and the policy makers of the organization. To have a satisfied, motivated, less stressed performing workforce an organization must have consistency amongst its structure, system, people, culture and the good fit with the strategy. In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify the various factors of organizational structure and culture which have a positive and negative impact on job satisfaction, job stress and employee motivation through the extensive review of the existing literature.
The findings reveal that structure, leadership, managerial practices and the decision processes mediated by organizational climate, good supervisory style positively impacts the employee motivation. Centralization, lack of participation in decision-making, little opportunity for advancement, the great amount of formalization and the high degree of specialization effects employee motivation negatively.
Professional Help, decentralization, open culture, structure, management practices, participation in decision process, participative management, autonomy in work environment, welfare facility, safety and security, organizational risk-taking, people orientation, opportunity for personal growth and development, promotion and recognition, supervisory support, good communication, goal congruence, warmth and support, employee empowerment, interesting challenging work with variety have positive impact on job satisfaction.
Formal communication, lack of information, lack of professional help, job difficulty, lack of adequate organizational policy and administration, lack of supervisory support, lack of opportunity for growth, rule dysfunction, volume of work, lack of praise, bureaucratic control, work specialization, poor communication, high degree of specialization, highly centralized and formalized structure effects job satisfaction negatively.
Friendly environment, autonomy, concern for employees and their development, teamwork, participation, creative environment, co-worker and supervisory support, risk-taking reduces stress amongst the employees. Lack of participation in decision making process, lack of effective communication, over rigid rules and regulations, centralization, little opportunity for advancement, job difficulty, bad management, bureaucratic rules, work load, lack of autonomy, lack of job security, high authority utilization, great amount of formalization and high degree of specialization increases stress amongst the employees.
Keywords: Organizational Structure, Culture, Job Satisfaction, Job Stress, Employee Motivation INTRODUCTION This Organization is Doomed-people do not work! Human Resources are the destiny makers of any organization. They are the most important productive assets of an organization. Capital and physical resources, by themselves, cannot improve efficiency or contribute to an increased rate of return on investment. It is through the combined and concerted efforts of people that monetary or material resources are harnessed to achieve organizational goals.
The overall organization development can take place when the organizational environment, structure and policies are humanistic and account for interests, motives, abilities and needs of the individuals. To get the maximum output from employees, organization’s structure, policies and psychological makeup of people working should be complementary to each other. To be successful, a company’s culture and structure needs to support the kind of business the organization is in and its strategy for handling that business viz. support, innovation, competition and profit.
Schwartz and Davis (1981) in a study of international banking division point out how these could have devastating importance on the company’s bottom line and its stakeholders’ needs if culture considered in the design of the major business strategies. Companies like GE, GM, IBM, TEXAS Instrumentation, Mitsubishi, Sony, ICIS Philips, and Siemens, are well-run corporations of the world which have distinctive cultures that are somehow responsible for their ability to create, implement and maintain their world leadership positions.
Organizations are not buildings or other physical structures; rather, organizations are the people who work together to achieve a set of goals (Koh & Kahn, 1966). These people come with variant motivations, experiences and values and their individual differences tend to direct behavior in numerous divergent directions. To direct behavior toward the accomplishment of a focused mission, the organizations have to develop mechanism, which reduces behavior variability. Organizational structure and organizational culture has been described as the mechanisms to reduce behavior variability (Weber, 1946; Burns & Stalker, 1961; Mintzberg, 1979; Schein, 1985; Weick, 1987; Dension, 1990). However both of them have unique impact on individual behavioral outcomes i. e. satisfaction, stress, motivation, alienation, and performance etc. It is needed to have a deeper understanding of the functional roles of structural and cultural forces in the workplace so as to understand the behavioral outcomes of the individual employees and to reduce the behavioral variability for achieving organizational goals.
For an organization to perform well in a competitive environment there must be internal consistency among the four dimensions of organization viz. structure, system, people and culture and good fit with the strategy. A lack of fit between culture and planned changes in other aspects of organization may result in the failure of a new measure to take hold. They also contribute to disasters in organizations. When these structural and cultural characteristics are appropriate, and fit the environmental, technological, and internal requirements, they have a positive impact upon individual satisfaction and performance.
However major deficiencies in structure & culture can lead to many major organizational problems as motivation and morale may be depressed, stressed out workforce, poor performance etc. This leads to delayed decision-making, lack of co-ordination, conflict amongst groups and lack of innovation & creativity. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY The present paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the empirical studies conducted to show the impact of organizational structure and culture on job satisfaction, job stress and employee motivation of the resources in the organization.
The prime sources of the studies reviewed herein include various websites, selected national and international journals, published and unpublished theses on the subject under reference. For this purpose, some reputed libraries such as Central Library (Delhi University), Ratan Tata Library (Delhi School of Economics), Central Library (GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi), Central Library (IIT, Delhi) were visited.
It is expected that the study would be quite useful for the HR managers and the policy makers in the organizations in deciding about as to what all factors of the organizational structure and culture should be taken care of to boost the satisfaction and motivation of the resources and to reduce the stress of the resources, which will ultimately enhance the performance and effectiveness of the employees and the organization as well. LITERATURE REVIEW The most important factor, which contributes to the disaster of an organization, is its structure and culture.
Substantial researches have been focused on the relationship between structural characteristics and attitudes such as job satisfaction, need fulfillment and behavior such as performance, absenteeism, and turnover (Berger & Cummings, 1979; Dalton et al. , 1980). Among the features which so often mark the struggling organization is low motivation and morale, late and inappropriate decisions, conflicts and lack of co-ordination, rising costs and a generally poor response to new opportunities and external change. Structural deficiencies can play a part in exacerbating all these problems.
Worthy (1950) conducted a study on nearly 100,000 employees of Sears Roebuck over a 12-year period relating employee behavior and satisfaction to organizational shape and size. He concluded that larger organizations with complex and tall structures (many levels) had lower employee productivity and satisfaction than smaller ones with flatter structures. Flatter, less complex structures with a maximum of administrative decentralization, tends to create a potential for improved attitudes, more effective supervision, and greater individual responsibility and initiative among employees.
In his article “Organizational Lessons from the Columbia Disaster”, Kidder (2003) reveals that the real cause of fatal breakup of space shuttle Columbia was the faulty organizational culture of NASA. Kidder further points to the parts of the report from Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which makes it clear that people, actually got killed, on global television and in real time, by organizational culture — not just by technical problems or by the failings of named individuals, but by culture. NASA’s organizational culture and structure had as much to do with this accident as the external tank foam,” the report notes in a key paragraph. The board’s report pointed to a culture that discouraged forthright communication, which makes it clear that culture gone wrong can be fatal. Another revealing study is the work on Bhopal plant accident. Bhopal Plant’s rigid organizational structure, according to Kleindorfer and Kunreuther (1987), was one of the three primary causes of this accident. Bhopal plant was plagued by labor relations and internal management disputes.
For a period of 15 years prior to the accident, the plant had been run by 8 different managers (Shrivastava, 1987). Many of them came from different backgrounds with little or no relevant experience. The discontinuity of plant management, its authoritative and sometimes manipulative managerial styles and the non-adaptive and unresponsive organizational system collectively contributed to the disaster. The last element i. e. organizational rigidity was primarily responsible for not responding and taking the necessary corrective course of action to deal with five reported major accidents occurring at the plant between 1981 &1984.
Bhopal’s monolithic organizational culture, as the plant’s operational milieu, only fostered the centralization of decision making by rules and regulations or by standardization and hierarchy, both of which required high control and surveillance. This view can be combined with Weick’s (1987) who perceives organizational culture as the “source of reliability” and suggested that high system reliability could only be achieved by simultaneous centralization and decentralization.
The organizational correlates of job satisfaction consist of various job characteristics and certain dimensions of organizational culture and structure. Many researchers have examined the relationship between job satisfaction and job characteristics. After a comprehensive review of literature Locke (1976) concludes that work satisfaction is correlated by work which (a) is varied in nature, (b) allows autonomy, (c) is not physically tiring, (d) is mentally challenging and yet allows the individual to experience success, and (e) is personally interesting.
Rabinowitz and Hall (1977) also support the view that both past socialization and the need-satisfying potential of job environment influence job satisfaction. Friedlander and Margulies (1969) found organizational climate to be a significant determinant of individual job satisfaction. Kaczka and Kirk (1968) demonstrated that employee-centered climate yields higher sociological and psychological satisfaction than task-centered climate. While Happaii and Mallappa (1988) reported a significant relationship between these two variables in a sample of 60 industrial supervisors.
The relationship between organizational structure and job satisfaction has been examined by Ivancevich and Donnelly (1975), on a sample of 295 trade salesmen in “flat” organizations. They were found to be more satisfied in terms of autonomy and self-actualization experienced lower amounts of anxiety-stress and performed more efficiently than their counterparts working in medium and “tall” organizations. Sharma and Bhaskar (1991) conducted another study on determinants of job satisfaction among engineers (n=148) in public sector undertaking (HCL).
They studied nine elements of organizational structure and climate via Scope for advancement, grievance handling, monetary benefits, participative management, objectivity and rationality, recognition and appreciation, safety and security, training and education, welfare facilities and bureaucracy. Each of the nine dimensions was found to be positively and significantly related to job satisfaction, though the magnitude of the associations varied considerably.
The three climate dimensions, which had the smallest correlation, were monetary benefits, welfare facilities and safety and security. In an earlier study by Sharma (1980), these three factors have been termed as those catering to creature comforts or material well being of man. In influencing the experience of job satisfaction, these factors appear to play only a marginal role. The remaining six dimensions of climate cater to the social and psychological well being of man. The highest correlation in this section is found between scope for advancement and job satisfaction.
This is consistent with an earlier finding wherein number of promotions received was found to have a fairly high relationship with job satisfaction. The next highest correlation is between job satisfaction and “recognition and appreciation” which, again is quite consistent with and supportive of preceding two relationships. “Grievance handling” and “Participative management” also show fairly strong relationship with job satisfaction. The only one factor that had no significant relationship with job satisfaction was found to be “bureaucracy”.
Marshall and Cooper (1979) reported that the relationship between organizational factors and stress suggests that different aspect of organizational design, such as formalization, standardization, and centralization may significantly influence perception of job stress. Other organizational processes like leadership, various modes of information sharing, and management policies and practices may also influence the perception of stress. A potential source of organizational stress is simply being in the organization- the threat to an individual’s freedom, autonomy, and identity that this employment poses.
Lack of participation in the decision-making process, lack of effective communication, and restriction on behavior, and over rigid rules and regulations may be a cause of high stress. One more study underlines that the structural factors causing and contributing to job stress are centralization, lack of participation in decision-making, little opportunity for advancement, a great amount of formalization, the high degree of specialization, the interdependence of departments and line-staff conflicts (Pettinger, 1996).
He also says that there is needed to have interaction between the desired culture and the organization’s structures and systems. Serious misfit between these leads to stress, frustration, customer dissatisfaction, and also to staff demotivation. Herman et al. (1975) conducted a study on 392 employees in a printing plant to analyze sources of variance associated with the employees’ responses to their work environment and found following results: •The organizational structure accounted for practically all the predictable variance in employees’ response (i. . satisfaction in general, satisfaction with pay, work, supervisor, coworker and promotion, and experienced motivation. •The 14% of the response variance job level and department were related to satisfaction with work and pay, interpersonal behavior contingencies and experienced motivation. This suggest that employees who have high level jobs are more satisfied with their work and pay, experience greater motivation in their work, and describe the interpersonal aspects of their work as informal. Employees who held similar positions in the organization structure, indexed by department and job level, reported similar satisfaction with their work and pay, experienced the same level of motivation, and agreed on the contingencies for interpersonal behavior. •Focus on motivation has significant positive correlation with satisfaction with work, promotion and supervisors, and significant negative correlation with satisfaction in general. Experienced motivation has significant positive correlation with satisfaction wit work, promotion, pay, supervisors and coworker, and significant negative correlation with satisfaction in general.
Hart et al. (1995), among a sample of police officers, found that self-reports of emotion-focused coping with work events was associated with more negative job experiences, which, in turn, were associated with more negative and less positive affect. Litwin and Stringer (1968) purport that organizational factors such as structure, leadership, managerial practices and the decision processes mediated by organizational climate are seen as arousing motivation which in turn, causes emergent behavior resulting in various consequences for the organization such as satisfaction, production and performance, and retention or turnover.
They found that distinctive organizational climates could be created in the laboratory by varying leadership styles. These climates could be created in short periods of time and have fairly stable characteristics once created these climates have significant influence on motivation and correspondingly, on performance and job satisfaction. Zohar (1999), using pooled-time series analysis on daily records of a sample of military parachute trainers, observed that daily occupational hassle severity (job difficulty), measured independently by an expert, predicted end-of-day negative mood and stress.
Teuchmann et al. (1999), using an experience sampling methodology with a small sample of accountants, found self-reported time pressure to be associated with negative mood and that perceived control may alleviate this negative effect (stress). Tsai and Silverthrone (2000) in their research explored job satisfaction and organizational commitment by evaluating the critical factors involved in the person-organization fit within a large major corporation in Taiwan.
The level of organization- person fit and the relationship to job satisfaction was measured and the results indicate that the lower the job satisfaction, the higher the turnover rate and absenteeism rates. Further a better job fit was found to result in a higher level of organizational commitment. Managers shared the organizational values more if the level of job-fit was higher and saw the organizational reward system more positively.
Cotton (1993) revealed that correlational research and meta-analysis of the literature have consistently found significant positive relationships between participation in decision making and job satisfaction and compatibility in beliefs among supervisors and subordinates is an important determinant of job satisfaction. Holland (1973) found that performance is best when there is congruence between the personality- based preferences and values of the individual and the requirements of the job. Dixit (1971) has reviewed a large number of studies on employee motivation and behavior. His observations revealed that employee motivation could be better understood if viewed in the interaction context, i. e. , the motivation of the individual being determined by his personal needs interacting with the demanding situational forces of the organization such as informal groups, organizational climate and the immediate supervisor’s style. Edwards (1991) reviewed studies published from 1986 through 1989 and offered the general conclusions regarding the relationship between P-E fit and strain. First, the vast majority of P-E fit studies have focused on needs- supplies fit rather than demands-abilities fit.
Second, most of these studies have found significant relationships between needs- supplies fit and various indices of strain, including dissatisfaction, tension, fatigue, somatic complaints and absenteeism. Further results of the studies conducted by Chatman (1991), Conway et al. (1992), and Blau (1994) suggests that needs- supplies misfit is related to job dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Similarly results of the studies by Xie and Johns (1993) revealed that the demands abilities misfit is related to dissatisfaction, anxiety and exhaustion.
House (1972) found that role ambiguity is important aspect of working conditions that contributes to dissatisfaction. Further Schuler (1985) explained that such ambiguity has been found to be particularly hard on workers with a high need for achievement. Jackson and Schular (1985) found a significant relationship between the measures of role- conflict and role- ambiguity with the measures of job stress and job strain. Other sources of stress and strain are under utilization of skills (Gupta & Beehr, 1979; Kaufmann & Beehr, 1989), role overload (Beehr et al. 1976) interpersonal conflict (Beehr et al. , 1997) and job future ambiguity (Kaufmann & Beehr, 1986; 1989). Organizational stress was assessed through a 35 item questionnaire on junior and middle level executives by Sinha and Sinha (1986). The data yielded ten significant factors of organizational stress viz. , lack of group cohesiveness, role conflict, feeling of inequality, role ambiguity, role overload, lack of leadership support, problem of coping with change, job difficulty, job requirement- capability, inadequacy of role authority.
Results revealed that job satisfaction was negatively related with nine dimensions of organizational stress. Job satisfaction was not significantly associated with job difficulty only. The regressing of the ten dimensions of organizational stress on job satisfaction indicated that out of ten stress dimensions six were significantly associated with job satisfaction and accounting for a total of 62 percent of variance. Jamal, (1985) found that the major causes of job stress seem to be work demands, role ambiguity, and role conflict.
One source of the job stress is mismatch between the abilities of the individual and the demands of the job. Bestinger and Cross (1998) in their study on expatriate showed the existence of links between the role-stress variables of role ambiguity and role conflict and the outcome measures of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Overall, the results showed that role ambiguity negatively influenced satisfaction with work, satisfaction with supervision, satisfaction with the job in general and commitment.
Meanwhile, role conflict had a negative impact on satisfaction with co-workers and supervision. Buck (1972) has observed that both managers and workers who felt that they were under pressure reported that their supervisors always ruled with an iron hand and rarely tried out or allowed participation in decision making. Managers who were under stress also reported that their superiors never allowed them to do their work the way they thought best. Marshall and Cooper (1979) studied psychological stress by using second stratum anxiety scale of 16 P.
F and found that along with personality factors, work overload and lack of autonomy are the prime contributors to stress. Margolis and Kroes (1974) have found that non-participation at work is the most consistent predictor of strain. In a study of 245 Danish companies Burton et al. (1999) found that a group climate characterized by friendly environment, high commitment, concern for employees and their development, teamwork, participation and consensus is low on tension (stress). The developmental climate characterized by entrepreneurial and creative environment, risk-taking, readiness for change is also low on tension.
The rational goal climate described as results-oriented organizational climate where leaders are hard drivers, tough and demanding with main emphasis of the organization on competitive actions and achievement of measurable goals and targets are found to be high on tension. The internal process climate is also high on tension, which has formalized and structured place of work, formal rules etc. Further Burton et al mentions in their work on “Tension and resistance to change in organizational climate” that trust is an element in organizational tension and climate.
They found that trust is high when morale, equity in rewards and leader credibility are high and therefore anxiety is low and on the other hand trust is low when conflict and scapegoating are high and therefore anxiety is high. Finally in their study they found that high tension (anxiety) involves low trust, high conflict, low morale, low rewards equity, low leader credibility and high scapegoating and vice versa. Hammer and Tosi (1974) have found a positive correlation between role conflict and job threat and stress and no relationship between the role conflict and job satisfaction in a sample of managers.
Similarly, role ambiguity has been positively associated with job dissatisfaction and job tension (Vansell et al. , 1981). Tosi and Tosi (1970) have observed a negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction among teachers, but, found no association between role conflict and job threat and stress. In other studies role conflict has been found positively associated with several forms of stress and strain such as fatigue, complaints, depression and irritation (Beehr et al. , 1976; Caplan et al. , 1975). Similarly, role ambiguity has been found positively relate with job dissatisfaction and job tension (Vansell et al, 1981).
Aresenault and Donald (1983) have studied the relationship of person-environment fit with job satisfaction and mental health at work, in the framework of Holland’s vocational preference and found poor mental health and job satisfaction among people who perceived themselves in a poor person-environment relationship. Zastro (1984) has observed that the job events or structural factors (e. g. too long work hours, dead-end assignments, isolation from peers, and impoverished social life) contribute to the high levels of anxiety, stress and ‘burnout’.
In an exploratory study, Parker and Decotiis (1983) have related time pressure and anxiety with a large number of personal and organizational variables among the managers of a large restaurant. In their study, autonomy, stability, the basis of compensation, task variety, support from superiors and cohesiveness were negatively related with time pressure while hours of work per week, the closeness of supervision, the indifference of corporate management, and supply- support problems were positively related with time pressure.
In the case of anxiety, stability, compensation basis, formalization, concern for the individual, quality of training, and the basis of promotion emerged as negative contributors, while the hours worked per week, the indifference of corporate management, role- conflict, the closeness of supervision, and supply support problems were positively related. Keenan and Newton (1984) have studied the impact of role stress and climate on hostility, satisfaction, and tension among young engineers at work.
They found a climate of warmth to be positively related with job satisfaction and negatively related with hostility and tension at work. Few Indian scholars have also dealt with job strain and stress. They related role efficacy with job anxiety and obtained a negative relation between the two. They also found that role conflict is positively associated with job related tension and work alienation (Sharma & Sharma, 1983; Singh, Agarwal & Malhan, 1981; Srivastva, 1983).
Singh and Sinha (1984) have studied role conflict, role ambiguity and job-person fit in relation to job strain and depression and found a positive relationship among the variables. In a sample of managers Hammer and Tosi (1974) have found a positive correlation between role conflict and threat and anxiety, and an insignificant relationship between satisfaction and conflict. Keller (1975) studied a sample of research and development professionals and found that role conflict is negatively related to job satisfaction with work and with co-workers.
Harigopal and Ravi Kumar (1978) have observed that role ambiguity is positively related with perceived deficiency in social and self-actualization needs though it is negatively related to job involvement and intrinsic motivation. They have also found that there is a negative relationship between company satisfaction, and role ambiguity and role conflict. Singh, Agarwal, and Malhan (1981) have reported that general role conflict is negatively related with job satisfaction and to satisfaction with working life. Srilatha and Harigopal (1985) have related role conflict and role ambiguity with many aspects of satisfaction.
They have found that both role ambiguity and conflict are negatively related only to satisfaction wit pay, supervision, working conditions, colleagues, opportunities for promotion, and to job as a whole both in the public sector and for the total sample. However, for the private sector personnel role ambiguity was negatively related to satisfaction with supervision and to jobs as a whole. Spector (1986) has reviewed the impact of autonomy and participation (dimensions of climate) in a number of studies made from the meta-analytic approach and has concluded that the autonomy and participation re positively related to general satisfaction, and satisfaction with work, pay, supervision, co-workers, promotion, and growth. Several studies have examined the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational culture. Most of these have reported a significant relationship between the two. Frielander and Margulies (1969) have related perception of culture with three dimensions of job satisfaction in a sample of rank and file workers.
They found that each of the three satisfaction dimensions was associated with a culture high in trust and low in hindrance. Pritchard and Karasick (1973) have related job satisfaction with several dimensions of culture. They report cooperation, the social relations’ structure, level of reward, achievement, performance-reward dependency, flexibility and innovation, and supportiveness as positively related while status polarization and centralization of decision making are negatively related with job satisfaction.
Autonomy and satisfaction have not been found related. Singh (1988) has studied job satisfaction in relation to nine dimensions of climate: (a) advancement opportunities, (b) grievance handling, (c) monetary benefits, (d) participative management, (e) objectivity and rationality, (f) recognition and appreciation, (g) safety and security, (h) training and education, and (i) welfare facilities. In bi-variate situations, all the dimensions of climate were positively related to satisfaction.
However, when subjected to multi-variate analysis only welfare facilities and safety and security emerged as significant predictors of job satisfaction. Srivastva and Pratap (1984) found the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational climate among executives and supervisors. They have found a significant positive relationship between the overall climate and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was also found related to various individual dimensions of organizational climate such as leadership, communication, interaction, influence in decision-making, goal-setting and control.
In a study conducted by Singh (1990) on 250 executives of public and private sector, he found that executives of public sector organizations have reported experiencing more stress on four of the stress dimensions: lack of group cohesiveness, constraints of change, inadequacy of role authority and job requirement- capability mismatch. Pestonjee (1967) studied the relationship between the job satisfaction and structure. He found that morale of people in a group with democratic structure was higher than in a roup with autocratic structure. Employee morale is influenced by fairness of policies, behavior and adequacy of immediate superior, participation in decision-making and sense of worth of the organization. Job satisfaction, measured by satisfaction with job, management, social relations and personal adjustment was found to be higher under democratic structure compared with autocratic structure. Laxmi Narain (1973) conducted a study in 47 enterprises to study the need areas of managers for measuring motivation.
He measured the gap between expected needs fulfillment of managers at three different levels. He found that for lower level managers, the highest gap was for promotion followed by recognition, personal growth, decision- making authority and pay and benefits. Middle level managers found the maximum gap in promotion, followed by personal growth, recognition, pay and benefits and decision making authority. For higher level managers the gap was biggest for promotion followed by recognition, pay and benefits, organization prestige and worthwhile accomplishment.
The managers were than asked to rank factors inhibiting performance. They ranked lack of consistency in management policies first, followed by lack of clear definition of responsibility. Inadequate communication and sloth and bureaucracy in management had the same rank followed by lack of fairness in personal matters and attitudes of workers and their unions. This was followed by audit control and government interference. Miner (1974) conducted a cross-cultural study on work motivation where respondents were asked to rate the importance of certain job factors.
He found that Indian workers show greater concern for job security, opportunity for advancement and comfortable working conditions. They also prefer authoritarian leadership to sympathetic supervision. Roy and Raja (1974) reviewed a number of studies on motivation and concluded that for supervisors and middle- level managers, promotion is an important incentive as well as a dissatisfier. Recognition is another job factor causing both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Factors which contribute to dissatisfaction are lack of adequate organizational policy and administration, lack of technically competent and sympathetic supervision, unfriendliness of superior and lack of opportunity for growth. First line supervisors value income, promotion, job security and working conditions most. Middle level managers value advancement, type of work and earnings. Senior managers, on the other hand value feeling of worthwhile accomplishment, recognition of good work done and decision making authority.
Sharma and Sharma (1982) conducted a study on problems of managers in public sector. One of the factors that all managers were satisfied with was job security offered by public sector. Lower and middle level managers were also satisfied with their salary whereas senior managers were not because of the big difference in their salary and that of their counterparts in private sector. Promotion policy caused dissatisfaction among managers because of undue emphasis placed on seniority.
Finally, they found that managers were dissatisfied with poor communication in public sector. Jaiswal (1982) conducted a study to determine the impact of organizational culture on commitment to work. He studied four types of cultures- autocratic, benevolent- autocratic, consultative and democratic and the commitment of respondents under each. He found that type of culture significantly influence the level of commitment, commitment being higher under consultative and democratic culture compared to autocratic and benevolent- autocratic culture.
In a study conducted over the public and private sector, Suderajan (1984) found that: a)Structural factors like decentralization, process factors like communication, participation in decision- making and goal congruence and climate factors like warmth and support significantly contribute to the effectiveness and satisfaction in the public sector. Structural factors like decentralization, climate factors like organizational risk-taking and behavioral factor like job involvement do contribute to organizational effectiveness in the private sector. )In private sector managers with a high, moderate and low fulfillment of needs regarding their job, authority, responsibility, recognition, and power were significantly different on management style, decentralization, risk-taking ability and communication, which further contribute to effectiveness and satisfaction in the public sector. This is further explained that in public sector, managers are motivated by hygiene factors like comforts (Sinha, 1973; Miner, 1974), job security (Miner, 1974; Sharma & Sharma, 1982) rather than job related factors.
Negandhi and Reimann (1973) and Reimann (1975) findings shows that increasing autonomy of decision- making has a positive effect on performance. Sharma and Sharma (1982) found that the promotion policy was one of the factors causing dissatisfaction among public sector employees. Lafollette and Sims (1975) investigated the relationship between organizational climate, organizational practices and job satisfaction for a large sample in a major medical center.
They found that job satisfaction has significant positive correlation with general affect tone towards co-employees, towards organization, policy and promotion clarity, openness of upward communication, risk in decision making, timely decision making, top management receptiveness, formalization, subordinate development, teamwork, intergroup cooperation, chain of command, general communication and job description. Job satisfaction was found to have a negative correlation with information distortion and suppression, job pressure, and standards.
Prakash (1994) has stated that person-organization fit in terms of values improves job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Prakash writes that these indices of P- O fit in values and expectation have implications for bringing organizations closer to the wider social context from which individuals come to join the organization. Organizational factors identified as contributing to stress and then finally burnout include multiple sponsorship of social work agencies, increased regulation, role conflict, downsizing, and role ambiguity.
These organizational factors are of particular concern in the current practice climate of increased privatization (Lewandowski, 1998; Rosenthal, 2000) managed care (Crotty, 1999; U. S. GAO, 1998), and the projected budget problems currently being experienced in governments across the country (Eaton, 2002). Role conflict and ambiguity, that is, lack of clarity as to what is expected, appropriate, or effective behavior, may be brought about by lack of communication about job expectation and roles, conflict with coworkers or supervisors (Decker & Borgen, 1993; Siefert et al. 1991), differences between organizational policy and expectations and individual expectations of fairness and equity, or value conflict with social work or personal values. Inadequate communication and unrealistic expectations result in staff overload (Ray 1991) and feelings of isolation. Social service workers can also become frustrated when more time is spent on paperwork than with clients (Gomez 1995). While pay does not appear to be the motivating factor to work, workers often seek the intrinsic value of the opportunity to help or to have a sense of purpose.
To further emphasize the impact of the work environment, studies have shown that burnout may be caught from co-workers or supervisors on the job through negative communication (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2000; Mirvis, Graney, & Kilpatrick, 1999). A study was conducted by Lewandowski (2003) on 141 social workers and other mental health professionals to examine the organizational factors that contribute to workers’ frustration with their work situation.
The following groups of independent variables were regressed on the dependent variable of workplace frustration while controlling for age, gender, and field of practice: decision-making, labor processes affecting clients, community, colleagues, and personal relationships; bureaucracy, and private trouble/public issue. The labor processes directly affecting professionals’ work with clients explained 43% of the variance in frustration, the extent to which frustration is a private trouble or public issue explained 36% of the variance and bureaucratic factors explained 29% of the variance in frustration.
None of the control variables were significantly associated with workplace frustration, suggesting that specific organizational factors are more critical than individual characteristics and field of practice in explaining workplace frustration. These findings support previous research that organizational factors contribute to the development of frustration, and perhaps to burnout (Arches, 1997; Jayaratne et al. , 1991). Both organizational support (Jayaratne, Davis-Sacks, & Chess, 1991) and control (Himle, Jayaratne & Thyness, 1989), the inverse of powerlessness, have been associated with decreasing worker stress.
A study was conducted by Jana and Jean (2002) on 514 human service providers in Alberta, Canada to examine how certain conditions of work affect human service workers’ job stress. For this, they studied the effect of professional conditions (autonomy, coworker support, supervisors’ support, and client interaction) and bureaucratic conditions (formalization, routinization, work overload, and role conflict) on expectations and job stress while controlling certain variables which might affect the dependent variables too.
These control variables were position, negative affectivity, work motivation, education, organizational tenure, hours worked, gender and earnings. They reported: a)An unexpected finding is that bureaucratization of procedures that may limit service workers’ control over their work does not contribute significantly to their job stress. This shows that the bureaucratic requirements of following set rules and procedures or performing repetitive tasks are apparently not that unexpected nor that stressful for human service workers.
However they also report that bureaucratic rules and duties have been found to be among the most disillusioning aspects of work in the helping professions, as well as a major cause of stress and burnout (Cherniss, 1980; Burke et al. , 1996; Leiter & Harvie, 1996). b)Autonomy has a negative effect on unmet expectations and job stress that is greater the autonomy less will be the job stress. Autonomy is a key defining attribute of professional work; it grants individuals discretion and control in the performance of their work tasks (Engel, 1970; Wallace, 1995b).
The literature shows how lacking control and discretion in one’s job is associated with high levels of stress (Cherniss, 1980; Hendrix et al. , 1991; Leiter, 1991; Guterman & Jayaratne, 1994). c)Greater coworker and supervisory support and satisfaction from client interactions reduce job stress. The stress literature also shows that good relationships with colleagues and supervisors significantly reduce feelings of job stress (Burke 1988; Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Bradley & Sutherland, 1995; Collings & Murray, 1996; Cartwright & Cooper, 1997). )Greater routinization (work specialization), work overload and role conflict results in greater job stress. e)Based on the results of this study, this would appear to involve granting workers sufficient autonomy and discretion in their work, ensuring collegial and supportive working relationships, especially with supervisors, and promoting satisfying and rewarding experiences from working with clients. The formalization and routinization of tasks may not be stressful for workers if the set procedures are consistent with the profession’s norms and values as to how service providers should perform such tasks.
That is, this bureaucratization of procedures may serve to protect and reinforce professional norms and values rather than challenge or contradict them (Wallace, 1995a). A study was conducted by Chow et al. (2001) on 726 employees on manufacturing companies of Taiwan to explore the association between organizational culture, person-organization fit, and outcomes of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, propensity to remain with the organization and information sharing behavior.
They found that four of the dimensions in the organizational culture set, specifically innovation, respect for people, stability and aggressiveness had a uniformly strong association with job satisfaction, affective commitment, and information sharing. Kerr and Slocum (1987) have reported that an organization that is people oriented, values and respects its people and treats them fairly and with tolerance, will engender reciprocal responses of commitment, satisfaction and propensity to remain with the organization.
Many studies have shown that monetary compensation is one of the most important explanatory variables for job satisfaction (Kalleberg, 1977; Voydanoff, 1980). In their study of public sector managers, Taylor and West (1992) found that pay levels affect job satisfaction, reporting that those public employees that compared their salaries with those of private sector employees had lower levels of job satisfaction. Another category of variables that have been found to consistently have an impact on the level of job satisfaction is job characteristics.
Those workers that perform tasks that have high skill variety, autonomy, feedback, and job significance experience greater levels of job satisfaction than their counterparts who perform tasks that are low on those attributes (Hackman & Lawler, 1971). Self-expression in job setting has been found to relate positively to job satisfaction (Voydanoff, 1980). There is evidence from studies suggesting that public sector managers experience lower levels of job satisfaction (Solomon, 1986; Kohjasteh, 1993). The work-environment characteristic is another category of variables that others have found to have an impact on job satisfaction.
Employees’ job satisfaction is related to supervisor characteristics (Harrick, Vanek & Michlitsch, 1986). Emmert and Taher (1992) found job-related feedback and the social environment to be important determinants of job satisfaction for public professionals. Mulinge (2000) conducted a study on 1211 agricultural technicians from the public sector, parastatal sector, and private sector to analyze whether they differ in terms of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to stay by sector of employment.
Structural variables studied were decision making, autonomy, upward communication, supervisory support, co-worker support, work group cohesion, promotional opportunity, professional growth, job security, legitimacy, formalization, grievance procedures, routinisation, task significance, distributive justice, pay, fringe benefits, work load, role ambiguity, role conflict, resource adequacy, and socialization practices. He found that the technicians working in the public and semi-public sectors are low in job satisfaction and organizational attachment relative to their counterparts in the private sector.
Attempts to explain the differences in satisfaction and attachment showed a combination of structural variables to be mainly responsible for them. It was found that it is the differences in the structural features of work that obtain across economic sectors that account for variations in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to stay among agricultural technicians. He drew two conclusions from the study. First, that the sector one works for is important in determining the levels of job satisfaction and organizational attachment one is likely to attain.
For the agricultural technician, being in private sector is more likely to lead to higher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to stay than being in either the public or the parastatal sectors. Second, that it is mainly the cross-sector differences in the structural conditions of the workplace that produce the cross-sector variations in satisfaction and attachment. Pettit et al. (1997) conducted a research study to examine organizational communication as a moderator of the relationship between job performance and job satisfaction.
The findings suggest strong support as a predictor of job satisfaction and weak support as a moderator of the job performance-job satisfaction relationship. They also showed that communication dimensions with the greatest support as predictors were accuracy of information, desire for interaction, communication load, trust in superior, influence of superior, and communication satisfaction. In another recent study, Gamble and Clare (1999) examined a series of managerial briefings in nine stores of a major electronics retail chain.
Results revealed that managers were neither trained nor appraised on their briefing skills. They prepared themselves indifferently, and made little use of techniques known to affect attentiveness and recall. It was found that the daily communication session appeared to have little impact on staff motivation or behavior. Assadi (2003) conducted a study on 86 managers of physical education organizations to evaluate job stress at two levels: organizational and managerial.
He found these results: a)Development of human resource, maximum pressure for work quality, job importance, time pressure and bonus were found to be the most intensive job stress factors. This means that lack of logical relation between job and bonus, lack of praising good work, sufficient salary, development of colleagues and employees’ capabilities and lack of responsibility leads to higher job stress. Assadi further suggested that attention should be paid to all these factors to have a better organizational environment and reduced job stress. )Management method, cooperation, role ambiguity and responsibility against employees’ acts were found to be minimum stress creating factors. c)Organizational structure was found to have significant positive correlation with management method, work trend, development of human resources and minimum use of power management. d)Average of organizational job stress is found to be higher then managerial job stress. Assadi further emphasize to pay attention to organizational stress which demands a glance at organizational structure.
Tepeci (2001) studied the effect of personal values, organizational culture and person-organization fit on job satisfaction, intent to remain and willingness to recommend the organization on 326 employees in restaurant industry. a)Overall result indicate that organizational culture and person-organization fit were significant predictors of employees’ job satisfaction, intent to remain and willingness to recommend the organization. Individual values were relatively unimportant in explaining individual outcomes. b)Amongst the various factors of organizational culture, people orientation was found to be the strongest predictor of the outcomes. )Job satisfaction was found to have significant positive correlation with all the factors of organizational culture, viz: people orientation, team orientation, fair compensation, valuing customers, innovation, employee development and attention to detail. Job satisfaction was also found to have significant positive relation with the person-organization fit. O’Reilly et al. (1991) found positive correlation of person-organization fit with job satisfaction and commitment and a negative association of person-organization fit with the intent to leave and actual turnover.
Kristof’s (1996) summary of empirical results support the effects of person-organization fit on employee satisfaction, organizational commitment, extra-role behavior, work performance, stress, employee behavioral intentions, and turnover. In relation to the demands of the organizational environment, researchers have found that most workers are particularly distressed by a lack of role clarity (Cherniss, 1991), low levels of autonomy (Maslach, 1982) and the inability to be involved in the decisions that affect their work requirements (Schaubroeck &Jennings, 1991).
Other more tangible organizational factors that have been associated with work stress include team functioning (Schulz et al. , 1995), organizational size (Price & Spence, 1994) and work pressure (Jones et al. , 1991). The CWU Health and Safety Executive (2001) commissioned a survey on its 2729 members working in various organizations to discover the extent of the stress in the workplace and the main factors causing it. The vast majority (84%) of respondents reported feeling more stressed at work than five years ago.
A large number of respondents were dissatisfied with many aspects of their jobs. Over two-thirds thought that performance targets were unrealistic and the same proportion was unhappy with the number of changes to their jobs. The volume of work, level of pay and lack of praise were all areas of dissatisfaction for over 60% of respondents. Bad management and excessive workloads were considered the two main causes of stress at work. Staff shortages, lack of job security, boring work, long hours and bullying were also seen as major causes of stress by a substantial number of respondents.
Bullying or harassment had been experienced by over a quarter (27%) of respondents in the last two years. In 68% of cases it was carried out by a manager. Organization of work was the area where respondents had most dissatisfaction, with over two-thirds (68%) considering performance targets to be unrealistic and the same number suffering from too many changes at work. The volume of work was a problem for 62% and 57% thought staffing levels were inadequate. The length of time given to complete tasks and meet deadlines was an area of dissatisfaction for 57% and 54% were unhappy with the allocation of work.
Other aspects of the job recording high levels of dissatisfaction were levels of pay (62%), lack of praise (60%), job satisfaction (57%), job training and career development (55%). Relations with management were a problem for many, with significant numbers expressing dissatisfaction with the following: how problems and grievances were the dealt with by managers (40%); the level of support from managers (38%); and the way people were treated by their manager (24%). Nearly one in five considered their relationship with their manager to be bad or very bad.
A report by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (1998), based on a wide-ranging review of the scientific literature on stress at work, says that the problem generally lies with the design and management of work organization. Stress is the result of an imbalance between the perceived demands of work and the perceived resources available to an individual to cope with those demands. It found that factors influencing the level of stress include: organizational culture and function; role in the organization; career development; workload; the pace of work; and the physical work environment.
There are few studies that focused on the job attributes that motivate employees. Maidani (1991) compared public sector and private sector employees’ ratings of the importance of fifteen job factors using Herzberg’s distinction between intrinsic (motivators) and extrinsic (hygiene) factors. He found that both sectors identified intrinsic factors as important, but public sector employees rated extrinsic factors as more important than private sector employees did. Jurkiewicz and Massey (1997) found that public sector supervisory and non-supervisory employees had similar preferences for fifteen job attributes.
However, non-supervisory employees reported not receiving what they wanted on fourteen of the fifteen dimensions, whereas supervisory employees reported gaps on only half of the attributes. Emmert and Taher (1992) examined the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic job factors on the satisfaction, work involvement, and work motivation of professional public sector employees. They found public sector professionals’ social relations on the job and the fulfillment of intrinsic needs were the best predictors of attitudes. Gabris and Simo (1995) assessed whether public sector employees were motivated by different needs (e. . , a higher need to serve the public and lower need for monetary rewards) than private sector employees and found no significant differences on twenty motivational needs. Finally, Vinokur-Kaplan et al. (1994) examined the impact of workplace conditions and motivators on the job satisfaction and retention of social workers in public agencies, non-profit agencies, and private agencies. They found opportunities for promotion and job challenge were the most important factors influencing the job satisfaction of individuals in non-profit and public agencies.
Dodd and Ganster (1996) examined the interactive relationship between the job characteristics of feedback, autonomy, and variety by manipulating the characteristics in the lab. Both perceptions of job characteristics and objective manipulations affected satisfaction. Additionally, objective variety and objective autonomy interacted to affect satisfaction and performance. Objective feedback and objective autonomy also interacted to affect performance. Sheehan suggested that employees experience inequity when coworkers leave for better jobs.
The experienced inequity had negative effects on employees’ job satisfaction (Sheehan, 1991) Few studies report relatively straightforward that perceptions of job characteristics affect attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Several studies assessed the impact of new technology on job characteristics. For example, Wall, Corbett, Martin, Clegg, and Jackson (1990) examined the effect of two alternative implementations of advanced manufacturing technology: (1) specialist control; and (2) operator control.
In the specialist control system, operators have minimal involvement. They are primarily responsible for loading, monitoring, and unloading the machine and alerting a specialist (usually an engineer) in the event of a malfunction. In the operator control system, the operators assume responsibility for maintenance and programming in addition to their other tasks. Thus, this latter system increases the operator’s autonomy, skill variety, task identity, and task significance.
Additionally, it allows control of machine-generated performance variance at the source. As predicted, Wall et al. (1990) report increased performance (for high variance systems), increased intrinsic job satisfaction, and decreased job pressure under the operator control implementation. Four studies explicitly examine the effect of job characteristics or work design on the affective and behavioral responses of autonomous work teams. Cordery, Mueller, and Adler (1991) evaluated the effect of three flexible manufacturing systems.
He found that systems in which employees reported higher perceptions of skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback reported higher levels of satisfaction and internal work motivation (and in one installation, higher efficiency). Pearson (1992) utilized Job Characteristics Test as the foundation for a two-year longitudinal study of semi-autonomous work groups in a unionized engineering workshop. After the initial installation of participative work meetings for the semi-autonomous groups, the groups’ ratings of role ambiguity and role conflict decreased, and ratings of job satisfaction increased.
Although there were no immediate differences in job motivation, productivity, or attendance, by the end of the study these variables were also significantly higher for the semi-autonomous work groups than for the non-autonomous work groups. In a longitudinal study, Jin (1993) found that voluntarily formed work teams reported higher work motivation, higher cooperative intentions, and interpersonal relations, greater work satisfaction, fewer disciplinary problems, and higher quantity and quality performance.
There were no differences in absenteeism or safety. Jin (1993) suggested these effects stem from an increase in cooperation and self-determination that may affect perceived collective efficacy. Additionally, Jin suggested this opportunity for self-determination may be particularly effective in the context of typical authoritarian Chinese work systems. Cranny, Smith and Stone (1992) studied job satisfaction and job performance.
They found that job satisfaction is substantially influenced by intrinsically rewarding conditions such as interesting work, challenge, and autonomy. To a lesser extent, they found that extrinsic rewards, such as pay and security, also influence job satisfaction. They did not find that job performance directly influences job satisfaction, although it indirectly affected it through the consequences of greater rewards. Jones et al. (1996) found when studying salespeople that manager’s leadership behaviors directly influence job satisfaction and turnover.
Babin and Boles (1996) found when studying retail employees that employee perceptions of co-worker involvement and supervisory support reduces stress and increases job satisfaction. Medley and Larochelle (1995) found in studying community hospital nurses that supervisor’s leadership style affects job satisfaction, with supervisors who have a “transformational” style (ability to effectively communicate their visions and strategies, to win allies, and to become role models) having staff with higher job satisfaction than those who have a “transactional” style.
Miller and Monge (1986) found that participation in decision making has some positive effects on satisfaction and productivity. Zeffane (1994) also found that participation, as well as task variety, significantly influences satisfaction. Crawford and Nonis (1996) suggest that poorly- designed organizational systems that fail to take into account the unique roles played by certain boundary individuals or groups within the organization are counter- productive in their effect upon job satisfaction and efficiency.
Deshpande (1996) found in studying non-profit employees that a “caring” organizational climate is associated with high levels of satisfaction with supervisors, and an “instrumental” (authoritarian and task-oriented) climate has a negative influence on overall job satisfaction as well as on satisfaction with promotions, co-workers, and supervisors. Keller, Julian, & Kedia (1996) also found in studying research and development teams that a climate of participation/ cooperation positively influences technical quality ratings and number of articles published.
Pierce, Hazel and Mion (1996) found in studying nurses that facilitating an autonomous climate increases job satisfaction. Dodd and Ganster (1996) found that increased autonomy increases job satisfaction for high- variety tasks. Vinokur-Kaplan, Jayaratne and Chess (1994) found in studying social workers in public and non-profit organizations that perceived opportunities for promotion and job challenge are significantly important influences on job satisfaction.
Dunseath, Beehr and King (1995) found in studying public employees that when role conflict is high, social support from co-workers and supervisors positively influences job satisfaction and is associated with lower levels of depression. Wilson (1996) reviewed many studies on job satisfaction and concluded that the following positively influence job satisfaction: •A participatory management style, which emphasizes employee empowerment, a positive and non- critical approach to problem- solving, and team- building. A participative, “caring,” supportive, and innovative organizational climate that fosters trust in management. •Opportunities for challenge, advancement, or promotion. •Interesting, challenging work with task variety.