A STUDY OF JOB SATISFACTION
AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE HERZBERG THEORY
1971 Volume 41 Issue 6 Pages 285-294
Details
1971 Volume 41 Issue 6 Pages 285-294
Herzberg et al. proposed the two-factor theory of job satisfaction in 1959, asserting that job satisfaction should be determined only by motivators, but dissatisfaction only by dissatisfiers. Since then, there have been a lot of studies to test its validity.
The purpose of this study was to test the Herzberg theory in Japan. The subjects were blue color workers and middle managements groups in four different manufacturing companies. Questionaires were used instead of interviews of the original Herzberg study, consisting of eighty items. Each of them implied either favorable or unfavorable experiences in the job situations following the list of analysis of factors such as Recognition, Achievement, Possibility of growth and so forth. For example, (1) Recently I got solved problems with good ideas, (2) The group I'm working with is poor cohesive, (3) I've desirable peers to work with together. The respondents were called for to consider whether or not they had favorable and unfavorable experiences concerning each of factors mentioned above (the first level analysis), and to check on seven points scales to what extent they had job satisfaction or dissatisfaction (the second level analysis).
The results have been presented in Fig. 1 (the first level analysis) and Fig. 2, Fig. 3, and Fig. 4 (the second level analysis group by group). According to them, there were both positive and negative sides to the Herzberg theory, but, by and large, the results supporting the so-called satisfier hypothesis were obtained in the middle managements group and the dissatisfier hypothesis in the blue color workers groups. The details is as following:
The factors supported by this study were Responsibility (satisfier), Salarly, Working conditions, Factors in personal life, Status, and Company policy and administration (dissatisfies). The factors that were not fully supported were Possibility of growth, Advancement, Achievement (satisfier), and Job security (dissatisfier). Factors supported by the results of one group but opposed by those of another group were Work itself (satisfier), Interpersonal relations, and Supervision-technical (dissatisfier).
