Friday 19 October 2012

What Makes Workers Happy? Anticipated Rewards and Job Satisfaction

an article by Susan J. Linz (Michigan State University) and Anastasia Semykina (Florida State University) published in Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society Volume 51 Issue 4 (October 2012)

Abstract

Using data collected from over 9,400 employees in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Serbia, across a wide variety of workplaces and sectors, we identify the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards that workers desire and expectations of receiving these rewards.

We use ordered probit regression analysis to evaluate the association between anticipated rewards and job satisfaction, hypothesising that reward desirability matters most for extrinsic rewards linked to numeric values.

Data strongly support our hypothesis in the case of expected job security; limited support is found in the case of expected promotion. For non-numeric extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, a strong positive link between job satisfaction and the reward variables often is observed, even if the expected reward is not highly desired.

While own earnings typically are positively linked to job satisfaction, peers' earnings may be positively (Kazakhstan, Armenia, Russia) or negatively (Krygyzstan, Serbia) linked to job satisfaction, but not always statistically significant.


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