Article Critique: Regression and Correlation
Research Question
The research question in this article highlights the relationship between job satisfaction and good customer orientation. The research question derives answers from the purpose of the research, which is seeking to clarify the importance of maintaining customers in relation to attaining a competitive advantage. To maintain customers, the employees in direct contact with the customers must have good relationships with their employers (Bauer, 2000). Hence, the research question creates a need for determining the relationship between job satisfaction and good customer relations.
Methods and Study Design
The researcher used the 24-item SOCO instrument as a scale for measuring the customer orientation, which was the key dependent variable for the research. 24-item SOCO instrument is normally a self-assessment scale suitable for evaluating the desirability of a salesperson about helping a customer in meeting the ends and offering satisfactory services or products to the clients. Other uses include giving an adequate description of the services or products to the clients, and finally determining whether the salesperson offers deceptive or manipulative information to clients. The instrument has been applied in various business settings from both the sellers and the buyers’ viewpoint, and hence proven as an effective tool of measuring and evaluating the satisfaction of transaction parties in any business.
Job satisfaction is the key independent research variable from which the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) scale was used as the research instrument for this question. Various researchers have verified this scale and according to Wicker (2011), the scale uses six indexes suitable for measuring the employees’ job satisfaction. Those indexes include “work satisfaction, supervision mechanisms being used, and chances for promotions, co-worker relations, payment satisfactions, and general job satisfaction” (Wicker, 2011, p.82). However, the above two-scale instruments that were used for measuring the data variables were used in the form of questionnaires where both the employees and customers were required to fill in their answers. JDI scale gives three points to every positive answer to a positive question and a negative answer for a negative question, or zero points. On the other hand, one point is given to a ‘not sure’ answer such as I do not know.
The sampling method used for the research included the front-line employees who work on an hourly bases at the theme park and spend most of their time at work in direct customer contacts. In data collection, a pilot study of ten interested volunteers of the study population was used to collect data from a sample of 301 employees, who completed the questionnaire. To enhance the correctness of the collected data, the respondents were contacted for at least five times and they included a three-survey distribution.
Data Analysis
A simple linear regression model was used to analyze the relationship between the two continuous research variables, which are independent variable, job satisfaction, and the dependent variable is customer orientation. Also, the researchers used the least square method for fitting the regression line in an effort to reduce the sum of residual points of the collected data that uses a regression equation. However, the research found the customer orientation to be Kurtotic, thus implying that it was non-normal, hence it could not be used for efficient analysis before carrying out an inverse transformation to achieve skewness and kurtosis values that range between +/-2.0 (Wagenheim & Anderson, 2008). The results found out that customer relationships were in relation with the satisfaction with coworkers, which is a positive answer to the research question
Research Critique
The research sample was enough for the study because taking over three hundred respondents is strenuous for the researchers, but the collected data has a higher probability of effectiveness. Data analyses were also appropriate since the research method was statistical hence analyses ought to have been a statistical method. There was a slight element of biasness made in the findings regarding the measuring scale where the JDI scale uses demographic characteristics of the respondent into consideration, but researchers ignored to base the collected data on the demographic nature of the source.
There is a great significance of the results in the practical world for there seems to be no relationship between customer orientations and employees’ satisfaction. However, there is a great relationship between employees’ coworker relations and job satisfaction, and hence the results have great practicality in reality. Also, it is normal to find front-line employees getting satisfaction from the customers as they spend most of the time at the workplace with customers rather than with their fellow employees as opposed to the permanently employed employees. I would recommend on the exhaustion of the research methods by putting into consideration the results obtained about the indexes applied by the research method in question. This aspect would bring forth a better and more comprehensive research results and findings than this one.
Summary
Customer satisfaction is essential for a business acquaintance of competitive advantage in today’s world of business. To satisfy customers in an effort to retaining them, it is important for employees to have general job satisfaction that is mostly dependent on employees’ relations in the workplace.
Reference List
Bauer, K. (2000). The front line: Satisfaction of classified employees. New Directions for Institutional Research, 105(7), 87–97.
Wagenheim, M., & Anderson, S. (2008). Theme park employee satisfaction and customer orientation. Managing Leisure, 13(4), 242-257.
Wicker, D. (2011).Job Satisfaction: Fact or Fiction. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse
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