An adult spends most of the time at the workplace; hence the relationship between the two must be as harmonious as possible. The current paper is aimed at analyzing an article, “Relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees working in a public undertaking: A pilot study” published in the journal of “International Journal of Indian Psychology”. The article examined how job satisfaction is related to employee commitment in the Indian cultural context. The article comprised of studies related in the managerial field but a majority of them were conducted in the western cultural context. The paper concentrates on the relationship public sector employees have in terms of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, it was able to discover that the two factors are positively correlated in both men and women.

INTRODUCTION

The authors have utilized information from previous research that importance of job satisfaction and its relationship with organizational commitment has been acknowledged for several years by managerial journals [1]. Using this information, the author argues that there is a relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment which is directly proportional in nature and gender of the employee also plays a specific role in determining the relationship between the variables. Moreover, organizational commitment is different according to the organizational setting and the environment [2]. The authors have reviewed several researches which focused on how the behavior towards public jobs in Indian culture was changing, through personal observations it was prompted that in Indian culture public sector jobs are more preferred in comparison to private sector jobs [1]. To find more concrete information on the relationship of organizational commitment and job satisfaction the author used quantitative method of data collection, this study was a simple co-relational pilot study which utilized the Pearson’s formula to discover the relationship.

The study was performed on a heterogeneous sample of 60 individuals (1:1) there was no age criterion for the participation in the study. Participants were selected through the method of snowball and convenient sampling techniques. Two questionnaires were used to obtain the data from the variables, the use of organizational commitment questionnaire helped in gathering empirical findings about the employee commitment towards the job. Whereas, Minnesota Satisfaction Scale was used to assess the job satisfaction of employees. Since this was a co relational study the author utilized Pearson’s correlation to find the relationship between the two factors. The article discovered a high (+0.01) positive correlation between the job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The authors discovered that the study’s hypothesis was significant at a 0.01 level. Similar results were discovered in past literature [3]. One other crucial thing which the study discovered was that the female employees had low scores of job satisfaction and organizational commitment in comparison to their male counterparts [1]. It is fair to say that the author was able to establish that this pilot study could be used to assess the same aspects on a wider scale of population.

CRITIQUE

The key point addressed in this article was the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment of public sector employees. It was able to establish that there is a positive relationship present between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, one of the main implications of this study was that it could assist managers and policy makers in formulating incentives and criteria’s which can nourish either of the two factors present in the study. The author also suggested that when the employee has high satisfaction, he or she experiences fewer thoughts about leaving the job or terminating a contract with the employer [1]. However, the study failed to address whether this relationship is a cause and effect relationship and which one factor influences the other. Even the statistical techniques used in the study were not up to the advancements that have taken place in the field and the results were analyzed using the basic methods of empirical formulation. The study used the technique of self-measures to obtain the data, this could have led to in manipulation of scores by the participants to increase social desirability in their responses [1].

This study could be improved by conducting a cause and effect relationship-based design to replicate similar findings and discovering whether there is more to job satisfaction and organizational commitment than a positive relationship. Whether the two factors influence one another and how are these different in nature in comparison to the western culture. The author could have used qualitative measures such as interview and observations to gain an in-depth knowledge about job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the Indian culture. There is a wide scope for this topic of research as psychology in India is still budding and research which is based on the Indian workplace would allow in discovering whether culture plays a significant role in determining the nature of these aspects or they have become indifferent to it. The future researches can focus on how these complicated concepts can be simplified for the use of workplace and employers.

1.   Saini D, Kuchimanchi SP (2019) Relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees working in a public undertaking: A pilot study. Int J Indian Psychol 7: 214-226.

2.  Markovits Y, Davis A, van Dick R (2007) Organizational commitment profiles and job satisfaction among greek private and public sector employees. Int J Cross Cultural Manag 7: 77-99.

3. Srivastava S (2013) Job satisfaction and organizational commitment relationship: Effect of personality variables. J Bus Perspect 17: 159-167.