Job characteristics, organizational justice and job satisfaction

Abstract

[eng] The purpose of this study is to analyse the relationship between job characteristics, organizational justice and job satisfaction. More specifically, our goal is to explore the relative relevance of these two factors to predict job satisfaction. Job characteristics describe aspects of the task, knowledge used, social relationships and context of a particular job or position. Organizational justice refers to the global assessment that employees do of their relationship with the organization. At least three dimensions of justice may be distinguished: distributive, procedural and interactional justice. The initial sample is composed by 1647 employees working for 42 different companies. The average employee is between 35 and 50 years old (55%), female (51,20%), university graduate (45%), and works in service sector (81,30%). Multiple regression analyses show that job characteristics and organizational justice predict 52% of the variance of intrinsic job satisfaction and 49% of extrinsic job satisfaction. In addition, task characteristics are the most predictive variable for intrinsic satisfaction, whereas distributive justice is the most important variable predicting extrinsic job satisfaction. Practical implications suggest that both job design and efforts to provide a fair relationship with workers have positive and complementary effects on job satisfaction.