Motivation and Human Resource Management Essays

Submitted By Sheila77
Words: 7696
Pages: 31

The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 21, No. 13, October 2010, 2438–2451

Culture, industrialisation and multiple domains of employees’ job satisfaction: a case for HR strategy redesign in India
Thomas Langea*, Gail Pachecob and Vijay Kumar Shrotryiac a School of Management, Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia; b AUT School of Business, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand; c Department of Commerce, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India This paper explores the link between cultural behavioural traits, the potential effect of industrialisation and multiple domains of job satisfaction, utilising survey data collected from public and private service sector employees in Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya in the North East Region (NER) of India. Results from ordered probit regressions demonstrate a statistically significant impact of both, extrinsic and intrinsic moderating factors on Indian employees’ job satisfaction. In view of India’s widely reported collectivistic cultural traits, which are assumed to emphasise primarily the importance of extrinsic job aspects, our findings are surprising. They suggest that in the wake of India’s significant economic developments the impact of intrinsic job rewards has played ‘catch-up’ with that of their extrinsic counterparts. As such, the study provides evidence in support of embracing human resource management (HRM) practices that incentivise Indian employees not only through their traditional methods aimed at extrinsic job rewards but also by explicitly addressing individual ambitions, needs and aspirations. Keywords: cultural traits; India; industrialisation; job satisfaction

Introduction It is widely documented that the Indian economy has undergone a substantial transformation over the past two decades. India’s growth performance has improved markedly and net employment, although distributed unevenly between formal and informal sectors, has risen considerably for the economy as a whole (OECD 2007). In search of sustained competitive advantage, the impact of organizational culture, competitive strategies and human resource management practices in India has attracted renewed attention amongst scholars in the fields of HRM and organizational psychology. Biswas and Varma (2007, p. 665) note that ‘the thriving economy and the arrival of the MNCs [multinational companies] have begun to change the Indian workplace dramatically’. They add that ‘given the transitional nature of the Indian workforce in the contemporary business scenario, it is clear that if organizations are to extract optimal performance from their employees, they must create an environment whereby employees derive intrinsic and social satisfaction’ (Biswas and Varma 2007, p. 672). What is more, Budhwar, Varma, Singh and Dhar (2006) observe that the availability of India’s new jobs and the stress introduced by the competitive environment has already resulted in higher turnover and absenteeism rates in many organizations. The importance of identifying the determinants of Indian employees’ job satisfaction is thus easy to discern, as it is based on the understanding that job satisfaction serves as a

*Corresponding author. Email: t.lange@curtin.edu.au
ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2010.516595 http://www.informaworld.com

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strong predictor for such employee behaviours as commitment, motivation, absenteeism, quitting intentions, and other affective responses to aspects of the job or the employer (e.g., Tietjen and Myers 1998; Lee and Bruvold 2003; Saari and Judge 2004). Whilst different methodologies and conceptual approaches have been employed to link, compare and disentangle the determinants of job satisfaction, a large volume of previous empirical studies differentiates these determinants by reference to