Literature Review
Job satisfaction may be delineated as a gratifying or agreeable emotional state emanating from the evaluation of an individual’s work experiences. Tenure, conversely, refers to the duration that a person has worked. Even though numerous studies have been carried out to look into the causes and the outcomes of job satisfaction in establishments, very little have been done regarding the topic in the Middle East. The findings obtained from Western countries are not applicable to the Middle East due to differences in the cultures and way of life in the two regions. A review of the available information reveals that job satisfaction varies tremendously depending on the culture. Sing (2012) determined the demographic factors that influenced job satisfaction among expatriates in the United Arab Emirates.
In his study, he found out that more factors influence the level of job satisfaction as the tenure increases. A different study by Shallal (2011) aimed at determining the level of job satisfaction among women in the UAE. In this study, there was a positive correlation between age, education and income and job satisfaction. The positive association could be attributed to increased job security and confidence that came with long work tenures. A different study carried out by Al Mazrouei, Al Faisal, Hussein, El Sawaf, and Wasfy (2015) indicated that the extent of job gratification among doctors in the United Arab Emirates increased with years of experience, which came as a result of longer tenures. Therefore, the three studies indicated that tenure had a substantial influence on job satisfaction.
Hypotheses
Following the findings of the literature review, the following hypotheses were formulated:
- HO: There is no significant relationship between job satisfaction and tenure.
- HA: There is a significant relationship between job satisfaction and tenure.
Results
From the findings of the questionnaires, it was observed that there was no positive correlation between job satisfaction and tenure. The tenure mean was 4.81 with a standard deviation of 4.523 from a total of 418 participants. On the other hand, job satisfaction had a mean of 4.87 and a standard deviation of 1.673 from 422 participants. Job satisfaction and tenure had a Pearson correlation of -0.053, which was far from 1 thus indicating that there was no correlation. Additionally, since the P-value for the correlation coefficient was greater than 0.05 (P=0.275), we failed to reject the null hypothesis and concluded that there was no correlation between job satisfaction and tenure and that the relationship was not statistically significant.
Discussion
The findings of the questionnaire did not corroborate the alternate hypothesis that there was a significant correlation between job satisfaction and tenure. These findings were contrary to the expected outcomes based on the review of existing literature. The differences could be attributed to the categories followed when analyzing the findings of the questionnaire. In the study by Singh (2012), the influence of tenure on job satisfaction is ascertained by categorizing the workers into various groups based on their stay in UAE. However, in this study, data analysis was done without categorizing the various tenures. Field (2005) as cited by Singh reports that questions with factor loading lower than 0.4 do not play an important role in job satisfaction. Therefore, in his study, the number of factors influencing job satisfaction increased as the tenure was increased. However, the questionnaire results were in line with the findings of El-Salibi (2012) who observed that attributes such as age, working hours, residency, marital status, nursing position and the number of children did not affect job satisfaction among nurses in UAE. Therefore, there is a likelihood that the relationship between job satisfaction and tenure was influenced by an interplay of various factors such as demographic factors and type of job (Wright & Davis, 2003).
References
Al Mazrouei, A. M., Al Faisal, W., Hussein, H., El Sawaf, E., & Wasfy, A. (2015). Job satisfaction among physicians working at Dubai Health Authority Hospitals – Dubai – UAE. International Journal of Preventive Medicine Research, 1(3), 88-92.
El-Salibi, B. A. (2012). Job satisfaction among registered nurses working in UAE Ministry of Health hospitals: Demographic correlates. Web.
Field, A. (2005). Discovering statistics using SPSS (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Shallal, M. (2011). Job satisfaction among women in the United Arab Emirates. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 12(3), 114-134.
Singh, A. (2012). Job satisfaction among the expatriates in the UAE. International Journal of Business and Social Research (IJBSR), 2(5), 234-249.
Wright, B. & Davis, B. (2003). Job satisfaction in the public sector: The role of the work environment. American Review of Public Administration, 33(1), 70-90.