Cultural heritage and job satisfaction in Eastern and Western Europe

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the growing body of empirical evaluations of subjective wellbeing by assessing the impact of basic cultural values and beliefs on job satisfaction across 20 countries in Eastern and Western Europe.Design/methodology/approachBasic cultural values and beliefs are defined by reference to traditional vs secular values and survival vs self‐expression values, respectively. Data derived from the European Values Study 1999/2000 are utilised, which provide detailed information not only on job satisfaction and socio‐demographic characteristics, but also on individuals' subjective views on religion, family values, work, child‐parent ties, political engagement, tolerance and interpersonal trust. Ordered probit regressions are performed to determine the significance of these characteristics, values and beliefs on job satisfaction.FindingsThe study highlights the strong influence of a society's broad cultural heritage on individuals' wellbeing at work. This raises questions about the impetus for numerous motivational interventions by managers and consultants. Traditional cultural values exhibit a strong influence on workers' job satisfaction in Western Europe. Interpersonal trust serves as a particularly strong predictor of job satisfaction for both Eastern and Western Europe, and for both male and female workers. The main difference between Eastern and Western Europe is driven primarily by the importance of family and religion.Originality/valueIn previous studies, job satisfaction has been strongly associated with measures of organisational culture. In contrast, the broad cultural heritage of a society as measured by its basic value and belief system has not figured prominently in this literature. This paper adds value by contributing to this fledgling field of empirical research.

Culture, participative decision making and job satisfaction

“…The results of this study were consistent with other empirical studies (Fargher et al, 2008;van Praag & Frijters, 2001) which also supported that higher levels of household income would generally increase job satisfaction. If a large household income is present, members of such households have greater freedom to be selective on the jobs they will engage in; household members will also be able to leave unsatisfactory jobs more easily (van Praag & Frijters, 2001).…”

“…Such a hypothesis has been empirically supported, where culture was shown to differentially affect employee job satisfaction (Fargher et al, 2008;Lange, 2009;Xu and Van de Vliert, 2004).…”

“…27 Although this line of reasoning has merit, the use of expectations to predict employee job satisfaction has been deemed as theoretically ineffective (Locke, 1969) The regression results also supported both the linear and U-shaped relationship between age and job satisfaction (β = -0.059, p < .01; β = 0.001, p < .01; respectively). Although the U-shaped relationship has been supported in empirical studies (Clark, Oswald, & Warr, 1996;Gazioglu & Tansel, 2006;Fargher et al 2008), when the size of the coefficient was considered, it became clear that the linear relationship would provide greater value for the purposes of interpretation. Consequently, this study observed a linear relationship between age and job satisfaction, suggesting that employees from older age groups were more likely to report lower categories of job satisfaction, while holding all other variables constant.…”

“…Both such interpretations would be analytically empty for the purposes of economic analysis, and thus it is important to establish a definition which lends itself well to empirical research. A broad definition of culture is provided within current literature, whereby culture pertains to a set of learned meanings and evaluations shared by a distinct group (Panther, as cited in Fargher et al, 2008), which guides their behaviour. Such a group can be of ethnic, religious or social affiliation (Guiso, Sapienza, & Zingales, 2006).…”

“…The progress being made in measuring culture and the availability of adequate data has led to some empirical investigations demonstrating the link between culture and job satisfaction (Fargher, Kesting, Lange, & Pacheco, 2008;Lange, 2009;Xu & Van de Vliert, 2003). Unfortunately, there has been little research conducted on the link between culture and PDM, with the exception of Sagie and Aycan (2003), 1 which is surprising when considering the existence of large variations in PDM practices across the world (Hofstede, 2001).…”