CHAPTER 1
Overview
This chapter will provide a brief introduction of the study which is job satisfaction among the sales force and how it is affected. In this chapter, the background of the study, problem statement, objectives of study, scope of research, significance of study and the organization of the research report will be explained.
1.1 Background of the Study
Job satisfaction among sales force has been a topic of increasing concern since it plays a significant part of amount in marketing budgets spent on them by organizations for the achievement of the assigned targets. Even though a large number of researchers have been conducted to inspect job satisfaction in various ranges of the cultures, subjects and occupations, there is not any or maybe a limited number of researchers have attempted to explore the impact of job content and context factors on the job satisfaction among sales force. The job satisfaction of an employee is something that has received considerable attention by researchers and organizations (Gautam; Mandal and Dalal, 2006). In this connection, sales and marketing management companies regard sales forces' job satisfaction as a vital aspect in developing and sustaining long-term profitable dealings with their focused valued customers.
One of the most important information regarding an employee would be a validated assessment of his or her level of job satisfaction (Roznowski and Hulin, 1992). Managers could guide their employees better if they have a better understanding of factors associated to job satisfaction of their employees. For an organization to be efficient and successful, the morale of employees plays a very vital role (Chaudhary and Banerjee, 2004). Thus, it is something of great concerned to improve job satisfaction by managers, supervisors, human resource specialists, employees and citizens (Cranny et al 1992).Thus, this study aims to determine the factors that could contribute to job satisfaction among sales force.
Job satisfaction is defined as the situation where an individual's needs and his or her actual state are met (Locke, 1984). It is the employee's own evaluation of the job conditions which is the job itself (Fletcher and Williams, 2006). The result which is obtained from the accomplishment of the job and the expectation of the employees is compared as a way to measure job satisfaction. The end result may surface as satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the employee from the particular job. Job satisfaction is also known as a factor that will affect employees to work in the long-term. Besides, job satisfaction could help an organization or firm to reduce the cost of recruitment caused by turnover.
From job satisfaction, sales force could have pleasure in their job and would be able to show positive attitude in their jobs (Locke, 1976). As a matter of fact, job satisfaction is believed to produce greater productivity, lesser absenteeism, and lower employee turnover rate (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). High productivity, improved performance and doing the job well are some examples of outcomes from job satisfaction (Linz, 2003). Therefore, organizations should pay attention to the rewards and benefits as well as the allocation of resources, role modelling, the way to deal with important incidents and the criteria for recruitment, selection, promotion and dismissal of employees in order to ensure that there is job satisfaction (Joseph and Winston, 2005). Other than that, (Joseph and Winston, 2005) also mentioned that interpersonal relationships, responsibilities, communications, vision of company and honouring promises and commitments should also be taken into consideration.
This research is to find out about the factors which could affect job satisfaction among sales force. Job satisfaction of sales force is something often taken into account by organizations and it is a very important element in order for an organization to do well. Job satisfaction plays an important part to the turnover rate of employees because they tend to resign or quit when their job satisfaction is low (Mudor and Tooksoon, 2011). Job satisfaction should be concern greatly by employers as low job satisfaction would lead to poor performance and high turnover rate (Adenike, 2011).
In this research, there are five variables which have been identified to be significant to job satisfaction among sales force. They are job autonomy, organizational climate, perceived organizational support, trust in management and work stress. Job autonomy is defined as the ability or freedom of an employee in an organization to make decisions about his or her daily job activities (De Jonge & Kompier, 1997; De Witte, Verhofstadt, & Omey, 2007). It means that employees are empowered by their management team to be able to make their own decisions in the organization regarding to certain things.
Next, organizational climate is defined as the collective perceptions of organizational policies, practices, and procedures (Reichers and Schneider, 1990). It could be measured by the perceptions of employees have of their workplaces, as reflected by individual values and psychological needs (James, Choi, Ko, McNeil, Minton, Wright and Kim 2007). Other than that, perceived organizational support is the extent to which employees perceive their employer to be concerned with their welfare and to appreciate their contributions to the organization (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).
The fourth variable will be trust in management. Nyhan and Marlowe (1997) and Nyhan (2000) stated that trust is the level of confidence that an individual has in another party and the individual willingness to act in a fair, ethical and predictable manners. Trust is well-respected in each and every part of business and industry whether it is locally or globally. It has been verified to be an influential aspect in evaluating the effectiveness of cooperation (Child, 2001). The last variable that will be used in this study to measure job satisfaction among sales force is the work stress. Al-Aameri (2003) has defined that work stress as pressure that comes from the workload given by the organization. Work stress is an unpleasant emotional condition that a person feels when the requirements is related to work or not could not be met and the person does not has the ability to solve (Halkos and Bousinakis, 2004).
1.2 Problem Statement
Job satisfaction is a very important attribute in any organizations especially in this very competitive of globalization era. In order for organizations to sustain and stay competitive in the market, sales force is very important. The sales force would be the main employees to bring in profit in organizations that mainly rely on sales.
Job satisfaction of sales force could influence their commitment to the organization that they are working for (Adio and Popoola, 2010). Sales force are people that are involved in relationship selling and they would normally have to put in extra effort in order to understand their customer's needs and be able to provide the best service (Beverland, 2001). Without job satisfaction, the attitude and commitment of salespeople towards their work will be affected. Career commitment of employees, especially sales force is very important in this developing country. It could influence the quality of services they provide to customers, thus, affecting the organization's reputation.
Sales force with a higher level of satisfaction in their job will normally be more productive. The feeling of wanting to quit or absent from work will be lesser compared to those salespeople with job dissatisfaction (Artz, 2010). Job satisfaction could help an organization or firm to decrease the cost of hiring which is caused by turnover of employees. For this reason, an organization must pay attention to employees' job satisfaction. For instance, if an organization has a high turnover rate, it could only means that employees of that particular organization have a shorter tenure than employees of other companies in the same industry. On the whole, job satisfaction and turnover are somewhat related by which job satisfaction has direct influence on the turnover rate of an organization (Mudor and Tookson, 2011).
Sales force as many other employees in other industries sometime do feel that they are underpaid and undervalued by their company. The feeling of sales force without job satisfaction would be like they are not part of the organization or that they are being ill-treated (Miao and Kim, 2010). That's why it is important for organizations to recognize their employees' effort in their job and provide them with the opportunity to develop and take care of their interests. This is due to the work is a major part of employees' life compared to any other single activities as it provides the economic well-being of employees (Alam and Mohammad, 2010).
In addition to being influenced by the level of satisfaction, performance of sales force is also affected by the ability and environmental factors. Even so, in the case of lower-level jobs where little ability is required, job satisfaction seems to be one of the key determinants of performance (Cockburn & Perry, 2004). Therefore, job satisfaction is very important in an organization because if employees are not satisfied, their work performance, productivity, commitment as well as the interpersonal relationships among the management and their subordinates tend to be lowered (Fajana, 1996).
Other than that, another problem is information on job satisfaction is not easily obtainable. After year 2000, it is quite noticeable that there are lesser researches that focused on job satisfaction. Therefore, it is not easy to search for information which is updated with the current situation. It would seem to be that job satisfaction is gradually becoming unimportant in society as time passes by.
1.3 Objective of Study
Research objectives could give researcher the right direction to conduct a research. The objective of this research is developed based on the identification of the problem statement. The research objectives of this report would be as stated below:
To identify whether there is a significant relationship between job autonomy and job satisfaction among sales force.
To determine whether there is a significant relationship between organizational climate and job satisfaction among sales force.
To ascertain whether there is a significant relationship between perceived organizational climate and job satisfaction among sales force.
To investigate whether there is a significant relationship between trust in management and job satisfaction among sales force.
To examine whether there is a significant relationship between work stress and job satisfaction among sales force.
1.4 Significance of Study
In this globalization era, the working world is getting more and more competitive. There is no doubt that job satisfaction of employees is very important in any organization to retain their employees and improved the competitiveness and sustainability of the organization. This research is conducted to further exploit the huge potential of factors contributing to job satisfaction especially sales force. Job satisfaction plays an important role for organizations to be successful. Therefore, this research can give a deeper understanding of job satisfaction among sales force. Factors affecting job satisfaction will be explore and understand. It could help organizations to identify what are the most significant reasons of job satisfaction among sales force.
This research is conducted in order to benefit several parties. First of all, it could benefits organizations. Organizations should know how to retain their sales force. They should know what their sales force needs to ensure that they are satisfied with their job. This research could help reduce the turnover rate and also help organizations to retain good salespeople as well as being more profitable (Mudor and Tookson, 2011). Other organizations could also use this research to ensure job satisfaction on other employees other than sales force. Human resource in organizations may find this report useful in their job to know better about their employees' needs. This study could be a guide to organizations to be more successful and sustain in the market.
Next, it could benefits sales force. The main subject of this study is salespeople. This study is conducted to find out the factors that could give job satisfaction to sales force. If sales forces have job satisfaction, they will be more productive as well as being more loyal to the organization that they are working for (Okpara and Wynn, 2008). If sales force doesn't have job satisfaction, they will feel that they are not a part of the organization or that they are being ill-treated (Miao and Kim, 2010). Therefore, they will not perform as they should be performing. Sales force without job satisfaction tends to quit or absent from work and also will not be faithful to the organization that they are working for. They will not be productive in doing their sales. Moreover, without job satisfaction, their behaviors could be influence as well. Salespeople who do not have job satisfaction may be rude and negative in their behavior when serving customers. Therefore, it could give a bad impression or bad reputation to the organization or brand that they are working for.
Other than that, this report could be use as a reference for future researchers. There are lesser researches on job satisfaction nowadays. Too old of a reference may provide inaccurate information. This study can be a foundation for them to conduct a deeper research. Researchers could study this report and then know about what is lacking and conduct future studies for better outcomes. In education, this report could also help by letting students to know about more about job satisfaction especially human resource students. They could get a wider knowledge on how to promote job satisfaction in real-life situations.
1.5 Organization of the Research Report
This research on the factors that contribute to job satisfaction among sales force consists of five chapters. The first chapter is about the introduction of job satisfaction, brief background of the study and the background of the focus group. In this chapter, readers can also acquire information on research objectives, scope of research and also why this study is conducted.
Chapter two will be about the literature review of past studies done on job satisfaction. In this chapter, there will be discussion on the factors that could affect job satisfaction in an organization. It will discuss about what past studies have found as a foundation for this study.
The third chapter will be known as Research Methodology. It explains the theoretical framework, the hypotheses of the research, sample of the survey, the data collection method and also the method which will be used to analyze the data.
After that, chapter four will discuss the result and the data collected for this research will be analyzed. If the results are significant or support the hypotheses, the hypotheses will be accepted and vice versa.
Lastly, chapter five which is also the final chapter of this research would be the conclusion of the research. In addition, recommendation will be provided and the limitation of this research is also included for further research in the future.
1.6 Conclusion
This chapter have discussed about the background of this research, problem statements which indicates the problems that could occurred if there is no job satisfaction, the objectives of conducting this research, the scope of research which give information about the research data is collected, significance of study which shows which party that this study could benefit and the organization of this report.
