Higher education systems throughout the world are experiencing a difficult process of change that is impacting significantly on employees. This has meant that university academics have to do complex work in an increasingly demanding environment. The issue of academic job satisfaction is of growing concern because it has significant quality implications for universities. Many research studies of job satisfaction have looked at varied applications to the Western context, however, in the Chinese context, it is still relatively unclear what accounts for academic job satisfaction. This study can fill a gap in the previous job satisfaction literature in China and explores the idea that the influences upon this factor are culture related. This study investigates job satisfaction among university academics in China, It adopts a mixed methods approach which combined qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. The qualitative data were collected by semi-structured interviews with a total of fourteen academics in North University. Specifically, the interviewees were asked to consider the factors impact on their job satisfaction. NVivo 7 was used to categorize the qualitative data for analysis on the basis of the work related factors. The quantitative data were collected by questionnaires. A sample of 204 academics from six universities in Northeast China was sampled. The quantitative data were analyzed based on the factor analysis of principal components to derive groups of variables. Simple percentages, means and t-test were then used for data analysis. The findings revealed that academics'job satisfaction has strong relationships with their perceptions to a number of factors. Although there were no significant differences with respect to personal characteristics relating to overall job satisfaction, age had significant influence on job satisfaction with self-esteem and self-efficacy. Work related factors that prompted academic job satisfaction related to work groups, work itself and to intrinsic factors such as self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-actualisation, while the factors that contributed to dissatisfaction were mostly extrinsic factors related to pay and promotion. These findings are discussed in the light of motivation theories, higher education changes and cultural context. Cultural factors, such as power-concentrated, group-oriented, holistic relationships, have significant influences on Chinese academics' perceptions of their work. As these effects are particularly relevant to China, not all Western models of job satisfaction can be applied to the Chinese context. This thesis concludes that intrinsic factors tend to be dominant in Chinese university settings and are more likely to evoke university academics' job satisfaction rather than extrinsic ones, academics are satisfied with overall levels of job satisfaction, although not with pay and promotion.

Job satisfaction is one of the methods used to establish and maintain a healthy organisational structure. It has been frequently investigated in studies that deal with organisational strategies because of its potential impact on work attitudes such as job performance, productivity and organisational commitment. Although researchers have identified many factors that relate to job satisfaction, the majority of these factors can be grouped into two broad categories: (a) personal factors, and (b) environmental factors. Although personal and environmental factors are utilised as distinctly competing models of job satisfaction, researchers argue that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction. Most, if not all, scales used to measure job satisfaction have been developed in Western countries. The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of job satisfaction in one of the largest public sector organisations in the United Arab Emirates, namely, the Dubai Police Force (DPF), and then, to develop a model of job satisfaction linking antecedents and consequences to job satisfaction. The police, like any other public sector organisation, needs to develop and maintain a strong relationship with its human resources in order to effectively perform crime fighting and service provider roles. The issue of job satisfaction, particularly amongst Middle East police force employees, has received only limited research attention. Although some studies have tried to identify the indicators of job satisfaction among police employees, empirical findings on those indicators have generally been sparse and inconclusive. The study employed a mixed method approach to meet its aims and to increase the reliability and validity of the results. The research strategy adopted involved sequential procedures. A qualitative study was conducted first to explore the research issue and to provide in-depth evidence for the research objectives (stage one). The results from the qualitative study were used to develop a scale. The quantitative study was carried out to explore the determinants of job satisfaction among the DPF employees (stage two). Five separate data collections (in-depth interviews, focus group, expert panel, pilot testing, and survey-DPF employees) were conducted, involving a total of 1,075 respondents. The results of this study support the conclusions of previous research that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction than individual demographic variables and that personal factors are of little value to understanding job satisfaction. The results show that 47% of the variance in job satisfaction scores can be explained by eleven environmental and four personal variables (in order of importance): salary and incentives, nature of the work, public perception, organisational policy and strategy, relationships with co-workers, supervision, promotion opportunity, performance appraisal, professional development, communication, job stress, nationality, sex, shift work and public contact. Accordingly, several policy implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Organisations are constantly dealing with challenges to stay on competitive and doing well, that induces organisations to consistently reassess their plans, formations, course of actions, procedure, and development to remain cost-effective and retain effective workforce. To keep employees highly motivated, content, and effective is however a focal and major issue in the domain of employee job satisfaction because of enormous human involvement. Consequently human resource managers are keen to find the strategies to keep their workforce fully motivated and dedicated to their jobs. In this study dissimilar from prior studies researcher has applied work attributes (Herzberg, 1968; Adams, 1963) and personality aspects (Judge etal, 2001) to examine the relationship of work attributes and personality disposition with job satisfaction. In current era of Information technology revolution organisations across the globe confronting several challenges on different counts including to keep workforce motivated and effective to gain maximum from their skills. Keeping workforce motivated to reduce tardiness, absenteeism, misuse of resources, and turnover are major issues of concern in the domain of employee job satisfaction and human resources management. Therefore, human resources management practitioners, managers, and policy makers are enthusiastically concerned to know about the factors that may help to make workforce effective, motivated and contend with work. The aim of this Doctoral thesis was to study the determinants of employee job satisfaction. The objectives were to explore the organisational work attribute factors and employee personality aspects in Public healthcare sector of Pakistan Where various reforms introduced after implementation of new health policy called Health for All(HFA) lately. This study was categorised in seven parts staring with introduction stating the setting of the study which covers background of this empirical study and supplies the transparent context information. In second phase systemic carefully carried literature review led to theoretical frame work and hypotheses development in third phase. Onwards Survey Questionnaires were administrated to General physicians working in public hospitals for data collection purpose. Descriptive statistics, multi analysis of variance, and exploratory factor analysis with the help of Statistical package for social science (SPSS) was applied to analyse the data, hypotheses testing and confirmatory factor analysis were done with the help of structural equation modelling(SEM). Outcome generated discovered that perception of procedural justice, on job training, working conditions, esprit de corps (team work) and personality aspects self esteem, and self efficacy belief, were significantly and affirmatively correlated and neuroticism personality aspect negatively correlated with employee job satisfaction. However, employee job clarity, task significance perception and personality aspect of locus of control orientation were not found to be related with job satisfaction. Implications and recommendation of research for employee job satisfaction are also discussed.

M. Tech. (Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between employees’ job satisfaction (JS), organisational commitment (OC) and intention to stay (ITS) at an international hotel in Lesotho. Employees’ productivity is largely related to their level of job satisfaction. Lumley, Coetzee, Tladinyane and Ferreira (2011:101) are of the view that since job satisfaction involves employees’ motions, it influences an organisation’s well-being with regard to job productivity, employee turnover, absenteeism and life satisfaction Therefore, it is important for an organisation to study the relationships between JS, OC and ITS. A survey questionnaire was devised to collect the information for job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intention to stay from each employee. Two hundred and twenty employees responded to the survey. This study used a quantitative research paradigm and a descriptive research method. Random sampling was deemed appropriate for this study, these choices are motived for in the main study. Participants were asked to complete three test instruments, namely, a Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), an Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) and an Intention to Stay Questionnaire (ITSQ). After analysing the data, the researcher found that there is a relatively strong correlation between job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intention to stay. Generally, higher levels of job satisfaction will lead to higher levels of organisational commitment which in turn will lead to employees staying at organisations. The results indicate that all three variables: JS‚ OC‚ and ITS have positive and significant inter-relationships. Findings and recommendations of this study are important to the management as they indicate the need to develop strategies to deal with the needs of those employees who exhibit low level of organisational commitment. The findings of this study provide valuable insights that can enable the management to create a satisfied and committed workforce

D. Tech. (Business, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between job satisfaction, organisational commitment, turnover intention, absenteeism and work performance amongst the academics within South African universities of technology (UoTs). South African higher education has gone through numerous changes in terms of restructuring and transformation. Rapid changes of this nature within a higher education system necessitate alternative work restructuring and arrangements, which could have a potential negative influence on the behaviour of academic staff. Research addressing these problems on the academic staff within UoTs in the context of developing countries such as South Africa has remained scarce. This study, therefore, was conducted to fill this gap. Universities of technology in South Africa employ approximately 2987 (N) academic employees. In order to measure the study constructs, the survey material was designed interactively in a form of a structured questionnaire. Participants were asked to complete five test instruments, namely, job satisfaction survey (JSS), organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ), intention to stay questionnaire (ISQ), absenteeism questionnaire (AQ), and individual work performance questionnaire (IWPQ). 600 questionnaires were distributed to the identified sample of academics of which 494 (n) responded. A correlation analysis was conducted to evaluate the strength and effect size of the relationship between the variables. The maximum correlation value between the constructs were 0.442 thus providing evidence of discriminate validity. Factor analysis was performed for organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) and individual work performance questionnaire (IWPQ) through statistical software package SPSS version 22.0. Organisational commitment revealed four factors and all of them accounted for satisfactory total variance explained of 65.2%. Work performance revealed three factors, which also accounted for satisfactory total variance explained of approximately 65%. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to test whether males and females were similar in perception in terms of study constructs. Statistically significant differences were found between gender and four study constructs except work performance. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to examine the differences of the various age categories, which revealed statistically significant differences between the various age categories and study constructs. The reliability results confirmed that all constructs reached the generally agreed upon minimum scale range for Cronbach’s alpha of 0.70. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to establish scale accuracy. All measures conformed to acceptable model fit and composite reliability (CR) and revealed that the scales used in this study are reliable. Finally, the structural model was tested; seven postulated hypotheses were supported and one hypothesis (H8) that postulated the relationship between organisational commitment and work performance was rejected. As such, it was concluded that the conceptual model captured accurate relationships among the variables and that organisational commitment has no significant influence on work performance. After reviewing the results, the conclusion was drawn that the study has both theoretical and practical value as envisaged. Theoretically, this research has contributed by further strengthening organisational commitment as a multidimensional construct. Contrary to some previous studies that reported high levels of significance between organisational commitment and work performance this study found no significance between these constructs. These results contribute more to the expanding body of knowledge. The current study added practical value by providing an integrative model that can be used as an important tool by management within the South African universities of technology to understand and manage job satisfaction, organisational commitment, turnover intention, absenteeism and work performance of academics. The results of this study can also be used for future organisational planning and policymaking. A number of recommendations have been made for the attention of relevant stakeholders in the academic environment. Future research possibilities and limitations of the study have also been highlighted.

M. Tech. (Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / Administrative staff members are important human capital in higher education because they perform diverse duties that are essential to the day-to-day operations of universities. As a result, their job satisfaction and organisational commitment are imperative to universities. However, there is a paucity of research focusing on the job satisfaction and organisational commitment of administrative staff members in the South African higher education sector. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the effect of overall job satisfaction on the organisational commitment of administrators at a university in Gauteng. To achieve the aforementioned objective, a quantitative survey approach was used to examine the relationship between overall job satisfaction and organisational commitment among 383 administrative staff members. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the levels of both job satisfaction and organisational commitment, results of which were significant, revealing that the administrative staff members were satisfied and committed to the university. Statistics using Spearman’s rho correlation analysis showed that there was a significantly strong correlation between job satisfaction and affective commitment; and significantly moderate correlations between job satisfaction and moral imperative and indebted obligation. However, weak correlations were found between job satisfaction and continuance commitment. Regression analysis revealed that job satisfaction contributed positively to the prediction of affective commitment, moral imperative, indebted obligation and continuance commitment. The findings suggest that managers at the university could enhance the commitment of the administrative staff members by increasing the levels of job satisfaction. The levels of job satisfaction of the administrative staff members at the university could be enhanced through job design, career advancement opportunities and the introduction of fair and transparent policies and rules. Organisational commitment could be improved through the provision of job security, equitable salaries and conducive working conditions.

Text in English, isiZulu and Afrikaans / The topic of work-life balance has gained much attention in recent years. A focal point remains the effects of maternal employment on the well-being of women and children, despite shifts in society towards gender equality. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of mothers who either had chosen to stay at home after having children or to continue with full-time employment; and how their decision impacted their lives. This qualitative study, based on the Social Constructionist paradigm, and Second Order Cybernetics and Feminist Theories, included interviews with four full-time employed and four stay-at-home South African mothers. The data were analysed using hermeneutic analysis. The findings suggest that the participants’ tensions regarding motherhood and employment were strongly influenced by structural obstacles at work and at home, interpersonal relationships with other mothers, as well as intrapersonal experiences. Breastfeeding was identified as a prominent topic within the various themes. / Eminyakeni yamuva nje ukulinganisela phakathi komsebenzi nokuphila kwasekhaya kube undabamlonyeni. Indaba eseqhulwini kuseyiwo umthelela wokusebenza komama enhlalakahleni yabesimane nezingane, yize sekube nezinguquko emphakathini endabeni yokulingana kobulili. Inhloso yalolu cwaningo kwakuwukuhlola lokho okwehlele omama abakhethe ukuhlala ekhaya ngemva kokuzalwa kwezingane noma abaqhubeka besebenza isikhathi esigcwele; nokuthi isinqumo sabo sibe namuphi umthelela ekuphileni kwabo. Lolu cwaningo olwalubheka umnyombo, olusekelwe embonweni weNhlanganyelo Yomphakathi, kanye ne-Cybernetics Yohlelo Lwesibili Nemibono Yabalweli Besifazane, lwalubandakanya izingxoxombuzo nomama abane baseNingizimu Afrika abasebenza isikhathi esigcwele kanye nabanye abane abahlala ekhaya. Ulwazi lwahlaziywa kusetshenziswa uhlaziyo lokucubungula okulotshiwe. Okwatholakala kubonisa ukuthi izinto ezaziyingqinamba kubabambiqhaza ngokuphathelene nokuba umama nokusebenza zazilawulwa kakhulu yizithiyo zesikhundla emsebenzini nasekhaya, ubudlelwano nabanye omama, kanye nalokho ababhekana nakho uma bezihlola ekujuleni. Ukuncelisa ibele kwakubhekwa njengesihloko esiqavile phakathi kwalezo zihloko ezinhlobonhlobo. / Die kwessie van ‘n werk-lewe balans geniet die afgelope paar jaar baie aandag. 'n Brandpunt in die literatuur is steeds die gevolge van ma’s se indiensneming op die welstand van vroue en kinders, ondanks verskuiwings in die samelewing ten opsigte van geslagsgelykheid. Die doel van hierdie studie was om die ervarings van vroue te ondersoek wat óf kies om tuis te bly, óf om voltyds te bly werk wanneer hulle kinders kry; en hoe die besluit hul lewens beïnvloed. Die kwalitatiewe studie, gebaseer op ‘n sosiaal-konstruksionistiese uitgangspunt, en ekosistemiese en feministiese teorieë, het onderhoude met vier voltydse werknemers en vier tuisbly ma’s in Suid-Afrika ingesluit. Die data is ondersoek met behulp van hermeneutiese analise. Die bevindinge dui daarop dat die deelnemers se spanning rakende. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)