Declining levels of job satisfaction levels in NZ companies have been suggested anecdotally, but raise concerns about potential negative impacts on employee motivation and performance. Herzberg first linked job satisfaction and motivation in his two-factor theory (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman, 1959). Anticipation of market conditions compared to one's current circumstances may play a role in job satisfaction (Jiang & Klein, 2002).
Herzberg's results indicate that motivational factors have a fourfold influence on job satisfaction compared to hygiene factors. H1: Intrinsic motivation factors (motivators) are positively associated with job satisfaction for IT professionals in NZ; and. H2: Extrinsic motivation factors (hygiene factors) are positively associated with job satisfaction for IT professionals in NZ.
Academics have identified job characteristics as a key factor contributing to perceived job satisfaction and turnover intentions (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005; Verquer, Beehr, & Wagner, 2003). This is supported by Kanwar, Singh, and Kodwani (2012), who found that those with higher job satisfaction among Indian IT professionals have lower turnover intentions. Herzberg's two-factor theory explores many dimensions of job satisfaction other than pay, which is critical for skilled IT professionals.
The model is expanded to include turnover intention, because the literature has established that this has a strong negative relationship with job satisfaction.
Measurement Model – Formative Indicators
Structural Model – Analysis
Structural Model – Results
The model explains 38% of the variation in turnover intention and has a strong negative relationship with job satisfaction (β=-.61, p<.001).
5 Discussion
Implications for Practitioners
The relative contributions of extrinsic and intrinsic factors to job satisfaction have implications for the results of job satisfaction surveys in the IT sector. This research shows that intrinsic motivation factors have much more influence on someone's job satisfaction than extrinsic factors. To conduct more accurate satisfaction surveys, organizations must invest significantly more in understanding the intrinsic motivation of their IT professionals by ensuring that satisfaction surveys specifically examine the nature of staff's work and the responsibility associated with their duties .
In the short term, however, the shortage will have to be covered by skilled migrants (MBIE, 2015). Within organizations, given our findings, the following can be considered: i) companies should focus on developing and retaining a motivated workforce to ensure top talent is retained. Lack of job satisfaction is what drives turnover intention; ii) companies should focus on the nature of the jobs that IT professionals undertake if they want to foster a motivated workforce.
What they do and how much responsibility they are given are key predictors of job satisfaction; iii) companies should train supervisors to provide an empowered environment for IT professionals. The perception of how capable superiors are is a significant contributor to job satisfaction; iv) companies should offer competitive salaries to retain the best talent. Although salary is not as strong a predictor of job satisfaction as nature of work, responsibility, and satisfaction with supervisor, it still shows a positive association; and v) companies should not hesitate to hire IT professionals born outside of New Zealand.
These recommendations can be seen in relation to the special conditions in the NZ IT sector. The vast majority of NZ companies, those in the IT sector included, are small entities with relatively unsophisticated HR approaches. Furthermore, NZ's IT sector - using an OECD definition of ICT and high-tech manufacturing - employs 5% of the national workforce.
HR strategies must therefore take into account the sector (and within-sector) location of IT workers, and especially the characteristics of the specific jobs, career paths and opportunities in those areas. NZ's IT sector is increasingly involved on the global stage, making effective people management in local organizations essential. The world is probably less concerned about NZ's size, location and organizational profile, and more about its innovation, quality and ease of doing business.
Implications for Methodology and Theory
While this partly reflects resource and structural issues, a recalibrated understanding of the importance of HR to employee outcomes such as turnover intention, productivity and long-term measures of firm performance (e.g. Huselid, 1995) would encourage tailored and more effective organizational and employment relations responses where managers encourage the development of satisfying job roles and highly motivated, autonomous staff. In New Zealand, this could include increased use of outsourced HR professional services and/or shared HR services by small IT companies. IT professionals based in New Zealand may turn overseas if they are not sufficiently motivated by the work opportunities available in New Zealand; at the same time, HR strategy in New Zealand IT companies must increasingly take into account how engagement with overseas clients shapes their corporate mission and goals and, consequently, local work and workplace design and employment conditions.
Cohesion in this area, combined with sectoral agility due to its relatively small size and 'can do' approach to innovation and employment challenges, can be combined with connectivity that enhances New Zealand's geographical distance and neutrality in geopolitical terms to emphasize competitive advantage.
Limitations
Following the 1986 Immigration Policy Review, there has been a continued growth in the number of skilled Asians entering highly skilled occupations in New Zealand in areas with labor shortages, including in the IT sector (Badkar & Tuya, 2010). Future studies could further explore workforce diversity in the sector to better understand the context for developing meaningful diversity/inclusion management and “best fit” HR strategies that can promote competitive organizational behavior. It has been argued that “the discourse on managing diversity that emerges from the American management literature cannot simply be applied to organizations in other cultural contexts” (Jones, Pringle & Shepherd.
6 Conclusion
Diversity issues (including a sense of 'self-sufficiency' and innovative spirit) reflect cultural assumptions unique to NZ, and require a multi-voiced discourse to address dynamic local demographics, cultural and political differences. The absence of studies on work motivation in the NZ IT sector helped to motivate this study. One plausible explanation for the lack of empirical work may concern the vague definition of the IT sector in this small nation.
In NZ, a wide range of studies on the IT sector come from different economies. Additionally, the NZ IT sector exhibits some unique attributes including many small and micro entities; relative lack of sophisticated HR functions/departments and limited use of external HR capacity; and a somewhat uniquely strong sense of entrepreneurial spirit among NZ workers in general. Other challenges are presented by the high level of diversity of the NZ IT workforce.
Our sample size did not allow PLS-SEM to be repeated on subgroups. A larger sample size may allow for the examination of trends within subgroups to shed additional light on this. This study adopts and validates a modified version of Herzberg's famous two-factor theory for the NZ environment.
Future studies could examine the theory in other sectors or improve the theoretical model by including other constructs such as performance.
Herzberg's dual factor theory of job satisfaction and motivation: A review of the evidence and a critique. A study of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention among IT and ITES sector employees. The combined effects of work and family characteristics on job satisfaction, work involvement, and intrinsic motivation of male and female workers.
The influence of job satisfaction on turnover intention: A test of a structural measurement model using a national sample of workers. Job satisfaction of Information Technology employees: The influence of career orientation and task automation in a CASE setting. Arrowsmith, HRM and Employment Relations in New Zealand: The Big Issues (chapter 3, pp. 37-56) Auckland: CCH.
Success through customer-driven new product development: a comparison of small high-tech entrepreneurial firms in the US and New Zealand. Arrowsmith, HRM and Employment Relations in New Zealand: The Big Issues (chapter 2, pp. 15-35) Auckland: CCH. The influence of nurses' work motivation and job satisfaction on intention to quit: an empirical investigation in Taiwan.
Appendices
ADV Career opportunities GTH Professional growth opportunities RSP Responsibility GFO Good feelings for organization MIS Clarity of mission SMG Effective senior management SPV Effective supervisor CWR Good relationships with colleagues SAL Satisfaction with salary BEN Satisfaction with benefits VAL Presence of core values SAT Job satisfaction.
