Revealing the Main Determinants of Employee Job Satisfaction in Jordanian Hospitals. An Empirical Analysis based on McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale

Abstract

The paper aims to reveal the main determinants of job satisfaction based on McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) using exploratory factor analysis and for a sample of 325 employees from six hospitals at the level of the year 2015. The empirical results revealed the existence of a four factor structure, highlighting the main factors of job satisfaction from the perspective of Jordanian employees as -“satisfaction with praise/recognition”, “satisfaction with extrinsic rewards and satisfaction with the balance of family”, “satisfaction with interaction opportunities”, and “satisfaction with professional opportunities”. The findings revealed that the financial incentives are very important but also non-financial incentives are fundamental in enhancing motivation among health employees.

Keywords: Job satisfactionsurveyhospitalsJordanMcCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale

1. Introduction

Health worker motivation can be defined “as the willingness to exert and maintain an effort toward

organizational goals” (Franco, Bennett and Kanfer, 2002). Low motivation has a negative impact on

the performance of individual health workers, facilities, and the health system as a whole (Mathauer &

Imhoff, 2006).

The shortage of work motivation represents the major concern of health system performance in

middle-income countries, taking into account the fact that it could have a large impact on health

systems performance and for this reason it is very important to know more about the key factors that

influence motivation in a country like Jordan.

The main purpose of the study was to reveal the main determinants of job satisfaction based on

McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) using exploratory factor analysis and for a sample of

325 employees from six hospitals at the level of the year 2015.

The present study was conducted on the hospital employees as they are one of the most important

stakeholders in hospitals to probe the factors influencing their job satisfaction. The study sample is

composed by doctors, nurses, helpers, support staff, administrative staff and other health related staff.

The investigation of job satisfaction of the employees especially for healthcare institutions like

hospitals can make a significant contribution to better understanding of the complex phenomena of

employee behaviour.

2. Literature review

Although the general theme of worker motivation was intensively approached and investigated in

the literature, there is a relative few studies that examines health worker motivation in a country like

Jordan and even a smaller number of studies approaching the overall health employee motivation not

only the satisfaction of nurses.

Amarneh and Al-Rub (2009) analysed the effect of social support from co-workers on job

performance using a convenience sample of 365 Jordanian hospital nurses, revealing a positive effect

of co-workers support on job performance.

Empirical studies concerning job satisfaction and job performance of Jordanian nurses are provided

by Mrayyan (2007, 2008, 2009), Mrayyan and AlFaouri (2008), AbuAlRub, Omari, and Al-Zaru

(2009).

Mrayyan (2007) surveyed a convenience sample of 433 nurses from both teaching and non-teaching

Jordanian hospitals, pointing out that nurses were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied and the level of

nurses’ job satisfaction was higher in non-teaching hospital than teaching hospitals.

Mrayyan and AlFaouri (2008) surveyed a sample of 640 of Jordanian nurses, highlighting that there

are no differences of nurses’ career commitment in governmental hospitals, teaching hospitals, and

private hospitals.

AbuAlRub, Omari and Al-Zaru (2009) compared the levels of nurses’ job satisfaction in both public

and private hospitals using a sample of 483 Jordanian nurses, revealing that the level of nurses’ job

satisfaction was higher in private hospitals than public hospitals.

It is important to mention that despite the fact that health employees are almost satisfied with their

financial rewards, non-financial instruments of motivation could be very important and could be even

more effective in the process of improving employee motivation and retention.

3.Methodology and data

In 1990, Mueller and McCloskey revised McCloskey's satisfaction scale had three dimensions of

incentives hypothesized to promote job satisfaction: safety, social, and psychological dimensions

(Mueller & McCloskey, 1990). The safety dimension included satisfaction with salary and benefits,

balance of family and work, and opportunities to work straight days. The social dimension included

satisfaction with supervisor support, relationships with peers, and opportunities to socialize with

colleagues. The psychological dimension included satisfaction with praise and recognition, control over

work activities, and professional opportunities (Mueller & McCloskey, 1974).

The MMSS was used to measure six components of job satisfaction- satisfaction with extrinsic

rewards, balance of family and work, interaction opportunities, professional opportunities, praise and

recognition, and control and responsibility (McCloskey & McCain, 1987; Mueller & McCloskey,

1990).

The studies of Jaiswal et al. (2015), Tourangeau et al. (2006), Kožuchová et al. (2015), and Lambrou

et al. (2010) have used the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) in order to analyse the

employee motivation.

According to the short-form of the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS), the score of job

satisfaction is represented by the mean of the 16 items rated on a five point Likert scale (5 = very

satisfied, 4 = moderately satisfied, 3 = neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 2 = dissatisfied, 1 = very

dissatisfied) arranged into 6 dimensions:

Satisfaction with extrinsic rewards (3 items: salary, vacation, benefits package);

satisfaction with the balance of family (2 items: child care facilities, maternity/parental leave

time); satisfaction with interaction opportunities (3 items: opportunities to interact professionally with other disciplines, social contact with colleagues at work and after work); satisfaction with professional opportunities (3 items: opportunities to write and publish, to participate in research, to belong to department and institutional committees); satisfaction with praise/recognition (3 items: recognition from superiors, recognition from peers, amount of positive feedback ); satisfaction with control and responsibility (1 item: career advancement).

According to Jaiswal et al. (2015), job satisfaction score for each respondent was worked out with the formula mentioned below and were classified into five groups according to the level of job satisfaction. A higher score indicated greater job satisfaction.

job_(satisf_score )=(total obtained score for a respondent)/(5*total number of questions) (1) The research was carried out among 325 health workers in six hospitals of Jordan: King Abdullah Hospital public hospital, Amman Specialist Hospital private hospital, Irbid Specialist Hospital private

hospital, Ibn Al-Nafees private hospital, Al-Shona public hospital and Princess Basma hospital the

biggest public hospital.

These six hospitals were chosen because they represented the range of public/private hospital

settings and circumstances. It was never intended for the results from these hospitals to be

representative of all other hospitals in Jordan. The data was collected in the period July-September

2015.

In order to analyse the responses of items were used descriptive statistics (mean and standard

deviation). For the revealing of the main determinants of job satisfaction, exploratory factor analysis

using principal component technique with Varimax rotation was used. The Statistical Package for

Social Sciences version 22.0 (SPSS) was used to perform the analysis.

This research aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) How satisfied are with their

jobs the employees in Jordanian hospitals? (2) What are the main determinants of job satisfaction in

Jordanian hospitals? (3) Are they financial incentives or not? (4) Can the non-financial incentives

improve the Jordanian employees’ satisfaction?

4.Empirical results

5.Conclusions and discussions

The main purpose of the analysis was to highlight the main determinants of job satisfaction among

Jordanian hospital employees, using McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale on the basis of PCA

analysis using a sample of 325 employees at the level of 2015.

The empirical results pointed out that the majority of employees in Jordanian hospitals was

somewhat satisfied or satisfied with their jobs however there is scope for further enhancement within a

realistic range.

Analysing the respondent responses, the highest rank motivator factor was interaction opportunities,

followed by recognition and career advancement. At the opposite side, the most demotivating factor is

the extrinsic rewards (salary, vacation and benefits package).

The empirical results of PCA revealed the existence of a four factor structure, which recover almost

65% of the variance of original variable, highlighting the main factors of job satisfaction from the

perspective of Jordanian employees as -“satisfaction with praise/recognition”, “satisfaction with

extrinsic rewards and satisfaction with the balance of family”, “satisfaction with interaction

opportunities”, and “satisfaction with professional opportunities”.

The findings revealed that the financial incentives are very important but also non-financial

incentives are fundamental in enhancing motivation among hospital employees. People need to have

accomplished the needs related with balance of family, interaction and professional opportunities and

recognition in order to be more motivated and to increase the retention level among the hospital

employees. It is important to create a balance between financial/non-financial incentives and the

hospital managers need to be very focus on the main element of financial motivation-the salary-having

in mind the fact that a low level of wages will deeply demotivated employees and thus will decrease

the level of retention and for some of them could increase the propensity of going into the informal

sector to supplement their earnings (Davidescu, 2013; 2014a; 2014b).

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