Person-organisation correspondence, job satisfaction and career commitment

Abstract

Iwu, Gwija, Benedict and Tengeh, (2013) argue that the education system in South African is in crisis. Thus, it is imperative that factors that have an impact on teacher’s job satisfaction and career commitment are investigated in the South African context. Rhodes and Doering, (1983) argue that there are various organisational factors that impact on job satisfaction which, in turn, impacts upon career commitment. The current study explored the relevance and applicability of such organisational factors that are suggested to have an impact on job satisfaction and as a result career commitment in a sample of high school teacher in Gauteng. Rhodes and Doering’s (1983) integrated model was utilised as a theoretical framework to identify person-organisation correspondence variables (person-organisation fit, perceptions of growth opportunities and effort-reward imbalance) that are hypothesised to have an impact on job satisfaction and a result career commitment in a sample of high school teachers in the Gauteng province in South Africa. Participants in the study were teachers in the Gauteng province (north, south and east). Participants were required to complete a self-administered paper-pencil questionnaire that was distributed at school for teachers who were willing to participate. The questionnaire contained Blau’s career commitment scale (CCS) (Blau’s, 1988), career growth opportunity measure (Adam, 1999), job satisfaction measure (Yang, Mossholder and Peng, 2009), perceived fit with organisation measure (Cable & DeRue, 2002), and effort-reward imbalance questionnaire (Msaouel et al., 2012). The sample for the study consisted of 110 teachers from five schools who volunteered to take part in the study. Descriptive statistics and mediated regressions were conducted. The results indicated that in a sample of high school teachers the person-organisation correspondence variables that we explored did not significantly have an impact on job satisfaction however, job satisfaction had a significant impact on career commitment. The indirect effects were also not statistically significant in the sample that was used. The results demonstrated that the mediation relationship between the variables as suggested by Rhodes and Doering’s (1983) integrated model was not statistically significant in the current study using a sample of teachers. To conclude, the findings of the current study did not suggest that the organisational factors suggested by the theoretical framework that was explored in the study as suggested by Rhodes and Doering (1983) in their integrated model are relevant in a sample of high school teachers. The organisational factors did not significantly have an impact on the job satisfaction of teachers although job satisfaction was associated with career commitment. The relevance of promoting job-satisfaction amongst teachers is further considered