A Study of Job Satisfaction in Relation to Participation and Alienation

Introduction With increasing social activities of organizations and their role in development of societies, the studies about organization function are expanded in behavioral and social sciences. Many studies and researchers every year investigate job satisfaction as a crucial aspect of organizations around the world. This attention is rooted in the important role of human resources in organizational success and plans. This attitude leads to some evolutions in management, by focusing on participatory management, and on employees' motivations and behaviors. At this round, job satisfaction is a more important variable. Job satisfaction has entered in most of the studies about jobs and organizations, in the last decades and attracted researchers and employees alike. But other variables should be investigated along with job satisfaction. Participation in job and organizational decision making, is a more crucial variable for satisfaction at work. Participation and sense of participation, can affect employees' job satisfaction directly and indirectly. Although participation in job tasks and decisions has effects on job satisfaction, other consequences are also important. One of them is alienation. Participation in job and organization can promote sense of belonging and decrease alienation from self, others and organization. This study has investigated the relationship between job satisfaction and participation by considering the alienation as an intermediate variable. Materials and Methods The study has been done in quantitative research approach by a survey method. Sample contained 300 employees in Fars Electronic Corporation, who were collected by random sampling method. This corporation located at Fars province in south- east of Iran and give services of electricity in Fars and Booshehr provinces. Research data collected with a questionnaire designed by researchers and filled out by employees in the two provinces. Questionnaire contained several Likert scales that measured Job satisfaction with 3 dimensions (Satisfaction with management, colleagues, wage and job conditions), sense of participation and alienation. The scales' validity and reliability were obtained by a pilot study among employees. The data was analyzed by SPSS. Job satisfaction in this study is defined as positive attitude towards job and job-related experiences. By this definition, job satisfaction is composed of satisfaction with management, work conditions, wage and job itself. Alienation is defined as a sense of powerlessness and separation from job and organization. Finally, participation is defined as a sense of playing role in job and organizational decision-making process and affairs. Age, education, wage and life satisfaction are the other variables. According to the research model, 8 hypotheses extracted and tested as follows: Hypotheses: 1- There is a significant relationship between age and job satisfaction 2- There is a significant relationship between education and job satisfaction 3- There is a significant relationship between wage and job satisfaction 4- There is a significant relationship between participation and job satisfaction 5- There is a significant relationship between life satisfaction and job satisfaction 6- There is a significant relationship between alienation and job satisfaction 7- There is a significant relationship between participation and job alienation Discussion and Conclusions The result of the study shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between age and job satisfaction and diverse relationship between age and alienation. According to this, older employees reported higher job satisfaction and lower alienation. Also years of working in the organization showed significant and positive relationship with job satisfaction. There is no significant relationship found between education and job satisfaction. But employee's wage showed positive and significant relationship with participation and job satisfaction. According to this, employees that get higher wage and material benefit from their organization, reported higher job satisfaction and lower alienation from organization. The hypotheses about relations between life satisfaction and sense of security with job satisfaction were also significant; there is a positive and significant relationship between job satisfaction and job security and life security. Finally it should be noted that the major hypothesis of this study was approved: there is a positive relationship between participation and job satisfaction. Also a negative relationship exists between alienation and job satisfaction. According to multivariate analysis, by multiple regression, among different variables that were investigated in this study, participation is the most important variable in impacting job satisfaction. According to path analysis, participation to job has a 63 percent effective value in the model. Participation, as is focused in some theories, has direct and indirect effects on employees' attitudes and behaviors. it can promote a sense of belonging in employees and increase their attachment to organization. Also it can be considered as a learning force in organizations to better job performance