European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011)

Impact of Job Enrichment on Employees Job Satisfaction, Motivation and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Public Sector of Pakistan
Mohsin Ali Raza Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab. Pakistan E-mail: mohsin_ali8790@yahoo.com Tel:+92-343-4189281 Muhammad Musarrat Nawaz Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab. Pakistan E-mail: musaratnawaz@gmail.com Tel:+92-321-4217616 Abstract In this world of globalization, organizational are competing globally. Resource utilization has increased and their supply is limited. All this along with other universal factors is contributing towards increase in cost of production. To remain competitive organizations are trying to control their cost. Means include stoppage of new hiring that ultimately putting existing employee under additional work to catch organizational growth. Expansion of same level work is also known as job enlargement.. The purpose of the present study is to understand the degree of job enlargement in public sector of Pakistan and its impact on employees work related attitudes and behavior. A sample of 650 employees from two government organizations was selected out of which 534 responded. Questionnaire was used as survey instrument to collect data personally at the locations of the organizations. Descriptive statistics and Correlation analysis were performed to test the relationships on the data by using SPSS. In general the findings revealed that government organizations of Pakistan are using job enlargement practices that are negatively associated with motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results of the study and future implications are discussed along with suggestions.

Keywords: Job Enlargement, Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment.

1. Introduction
In todays dynamic world organizations need to grapple with trends such as rapid product and technological changes, global competition, deregulation, demographic changes and a shift to a service economy. This has increased need for firms to be more responsive, flexible, competitive and innovative. So the traditional meanings of a job that is of a well defined set of responsibilities and actions is weakened because employees now cannot just limit themselves to their job descriptions as they need to modify their work according to continuously changing requirements of work. Now the focus is shifting toward "Dejobbing" that is broadening the responsibilities of the company's jobs and encouraging employees not to limit themselves on what is written on their job descriptions. That can be done by redesigning traditional job designs through the application of modern job designs such as job enrichment. Job enrichment is the redesigning of jobs in a way that increases the opportunities for the worker to experience feelings of responsibility, autonomy, work itself, achievement, growth, and 220

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) recognition". Job enrichment allows the employee to work innovatively and accordingly because of expansion of role and responsibility. Government is the biggest employer of any country. The success of any government depends upon how effectively its organizations are working, and the success of organizations ultimately depends upon its employees. The more satisfied, motivated, committed and flexible the employees are the performance of the organizations would be more efficient and effective. To observe whether government organizations in Pakistan adopting job enrichment to cope up with new challenges, this study is tend to empirically investigate the extent of job enrichment practice happening in public sector of Pakistan and as a result, its effect on employees level of motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

2. Literature Review
Traditionally the term "JOB" is defined as "a set of closely related activities carried out for pay" (Dessler, 2005, p.137). Job based approach also stresses the concept that employees should do jobs that contain specific work activities, obligations and accountabilities (Lawler, 1993). Adam Smith suggested that specific work activities and routine work leads to work specialization which ultimately leads to work efficiency and effectiveness (Lawler, 1993). Despite the usefulness of job based approach, there is an increasing support that now it is the time to shift attention from jobs to persons, their skills, competencies and abilities (Lawler & Ledford, 1992). The conventional job-based approach to managing was more suitable in the past when mass production was immensely happened. Many factors though now questioned the future utility of this approach. Today it is not possible to survive for the organizations with that mass production approach (Porter, 1990). This pressure for change is not only forced by the organizational competitors but also by its customers and share holders (Lundberg & Gonas, 1998). Rapid changes in modern world in computing, information technology and a trend toward globalization have affected the way work is done and also changed the face of competition among organizations (Doyle, 1990). Today's organizations and their employees require adaptively more rapidly to the changing world so that they may face the new challenges more comprehensively. It is applied on both private and public organizations. In the modern working life employees need to be very clear regarding what to do and how to do and this can only be done by empowering them through autonomy (Lawler & Ledford, 1992). It is supported by research that a motivational and empowered work climate can influence employee's attitudes toward work positively and can improve work performance (Brown & Leigh, 1996). Job enrichment is defined as "Redesigning jobs in a way that increases the opportunities for the worker to experience feelings of responsibility, achievement, growth, and recognition" Job enrichment is a qualitative change to a job that increases the extent of autonomy, feedback, and significance of the job, allowing workers to have better control and feedback in their work setting (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). So an addition in job related tasks with a view to increase employee control and responsibility is called job enrichment. Job enrichment is a vertical expansion of the job and opposed to job enlargement. A study was conducted that claimed job enrichment leads to motivation and high level of job satisfaction as compare to traditional specific jobs ((Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Job enrichment encourage workers to learn, develop and do innovative experiments at work, by that it helps to boost up the morale and motivation of workers (Hackman & Lawler 1971; Lawler 1973; Hackman & Oldham 1976). Hackman and Oldham (1980) suggested that, when an employee knows that he alone completed the task which is important for him by implementing his own skills and knowledge, this will lead to motivation. (Orpen, 1979) observed the impact of job enrichment on employees and found that job enrichment lead to a significant increase in employees job satisfaction, internal motivation and job involvement But there could be some negative outcomes of job enrichment. But it is also observed that job enrichment may cause intensification of work. For example, there are many examples from a commonly cited Business Week (1983, p.100) report on job enrichment and work flexibility stated that job enrichment 221

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) increases additional burden and responsibility on employees. This study tends to observe the impact of job enrichment on employees motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. How individual perceives and experiences work environment including work activities to be done by him, forms individual's attitudes and behaviors and ultimately these attitudes and behaviors determine the individual's tendency towards work. Such attitudes and behaviors can be modifying accordingly in favor or against (Allport, 1935). Motivation is a phenomenon that wary with the environment and other processes. Luthan also suggested that motivation cannot be seen as a process, but it can be observed through behavior Luthan (1998) defines motivation as, a process that starts with a physiological deficiency or need that activates behavior or a drive that is aimed at a goal incentive. So it is important to understand the relationship between needs, drives, and incentives to understand the process of motivation. Motivation is the result of psychological processes that lead to goal oriented and effective efforts of the individuals (Mitchell, 1982). Job satisfaction is a state of pleasure that could be gained by implementing ones values to a job (Locke, 1969). It is also suggested that job satisfaction can be considered as a global feeling about the job or as a related constellation of attitudes about various aspects or facets of the job. (Spector, 1997, p. 2). It is suggested that job satisfaction occurs when changing individual needs match unchanged and specific characteristics of the job (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977). The absence of job satisfaction among employees results in negative workplace behaviors such as low performance, high absenteeism, high turnover, and decreased productivity (Koys, 2001). Organizational commitment can be simply defined as the attachment or bonding that individuals form to their employing organizations (Ketchand & Strawser, 2001). (Mowday, 1998; Meyer & Allen, 1997; Goulet & Frank, 2002). In summary job enrichment is suggested as the need of the hour to cope up with changing work demands, but what would be its impact on employees in terms of motivation, job satisfaction and commitment, is the study question. The following research model is being tested in the following study. Motivation Job Satisfaction Job Enrichment Organizational Commitment Following hypothesis are developed and tested. H1: Job enrichment has a positive association with job satisfaction. H2: Job enrichment has a positive association with motivation. H3: Job enrichment has a positive association with organizational commitment.

3. Methodology
The study is a descriptive field study conducted through personally administrative questionnaire. The survey is conducted personally in a noncontrived settings. The type of investigation is correlational. Population of the study consists of two public sector organizations from Pakistan. These organizations are Accountant General Punjab Revenue and Accountant General of Pakistan. Both are situated in the city of Lahore. In both organizations the nature of work is related to Finance and Accounts. In both organizations employees are engaged in sorting, recording, analyzing and auditing the financial and accounting records under the instructions of government of Pakistan. The main nature of work includes audit of government expenditures and revenues in the province of Punjab. The study Population 222

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) consists of employees from all three levels of management including top level, middle level and lower level management. Both organizations consist of approximately around 40000 employees. The sampling technique used in the study is probability sampling specifically simple random sampling. 700 questionnaires were distributed for the research purpose out of which 534 responded with the response rate of 76.3%. The instrument contained 40 questions based on five point likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The alpha value of the reliability of the instrument is .82 which is satisfactory and statistically acceptable .The collected data through questionnaires was comprehensively analyzed with the use of SPSS version 16 for windows software and Microsoft excel 2007. Some Descriptive tests were also run to observe the demographical characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, qualification, and level of job to understand the differences on such bases. The Pearsons correlation coefficient was applied to find out the relationship between job enrichment and the resultant outcomes motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The significance of relationships was measured at confidence levels of 95% and 99%.

4. Results
Among the total of 534 respondents 449 (84%) were male and 85 (16%) were female while 214 (40%) were single and 320 (60%) were married. The qualification of the respondents consisted of 214 (40%) graduates, 206 (38.5%) were masters and above and 114 (21.3%) holding below graduate degrees. The respondents were from all the levels of management consisting 128 (23.9%) from entry level, 386 (72.1%) from middle level and 20 (3.7%) from top level. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the mean scores of the respondents and it was found that the mean age of 534 respondents was 33.86 years with standard deviation of 9.56 years. The mean score of experience of the respondents was found as 11.48 years with standard deviation of 9.69 years. The detail of the findings regarding demographics of the sample is mentioned below in the Table 1.
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents (N=534)
Frequency 449 85 214 320 114 214 206 128 386 20 2 262 148 80 42 324 112 64 34 Percentage 84% 16% 40% 60% 21.30% 40% 38.50% 23.90% 72.10% 3.70% 4% 49.06% 27.71% 14.98% 7.86% 60.67% 20.97% 11.98% 6.36%

Characteristics Gender Male Female Marital status Single Married Qualification Below graduation Graduation Master or above Level of job Entry level Middle level Top level Age (years) Below 20 Between 21 and 30 Between 31 and 40 Between 41 and 50 51 and above Experience (years) Between 0 and 10 Between 11 and 20 Between 21 and 30 31 and above

223

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) To measure the existence of job enrichment and the resultant impact of its on employees motivation job satisfaction and organizational commitment in public sector of Pakistan, data was analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS version 16. Job enrichment was found to be present with mean score of 3.4292 and standard deviation of .70551. It can be said that higher than average employees believed that job enrichment is happening in their organizations. The mean score of outcome motivation was found as 3.3596 with standard deviation of 1.1533 suggests that in public sector of Pakistan employees are motivated with moderately above average mean score. The mean score of outcome job satisfaction was 3.4760 with standard deviation of .49601 shows that in government organizations of Pakistan above average employees are satisfied with their jobs as a result of job enrichment. The mean score of the outcome organizational commitment was 3.2561 with standard deviation of .40160, which reflects that employees level of commitment is also higher than average. These results are also shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Mean Scores and Standard Deviations of Job Enrichment and Outcomes
Mean 3.4292 3.3596 3.4760 3.2561 S. deviation .70551 1.1533 .49601 .40160

Job enrichment Motivation Job satisfaction Organizational commitment

Relationship between job enrichment and work related outcomes of the employees are also determined by applying Pearsons correlation coefficient on data by using SPSS software. The significance of relationship is measured at confidence levels 95% and 99%. The results indicated that job enrichment is strongly correlated with job satisfaction (r= .554, p<0.05) while a significant relationship between job enrichment and motivation is also present (r= .514, p<0.05). The relationship between job enrichment and organizational commitment is found to be moderately positive (r= .354, p<0.05).
Table 3: Correlation Between Job Enrichment and Employees' work Related Outcomes.
Job Satisfaction Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Job Enrichment .554(**) .000 Motivation .514(**) .000 Organizational Commitment .354(**) .000

So all three hypothesis of the research are accepted.

5. Discussions/Conclusions/Future Recommendations
The ever changing nature of work demands flexible employees who can anticipate rather than mere react to the changing nature of work more efficiently, effectively and innovatively. This can only be done by giving them more autonomy and freedom. Job enrichment is a type of job design that allows such autonomy and freedom. This study is conducted to observe whether job enrichment design is following by public sector of Pakistan and what are the resultant impacts and outcomes it has on employees. As a result of this study major inferences can contribute heavily to the literature of organizational behavior because in Pakistan fewer studies have conducted in the past on this topic. In the current study the degree of job enrichment in government organizations of Pakistan was empirically supported. Job enrichment was found as strong predictor of job satisfaction, motivation and organizational commitment. The plausible explanation of this association might be that job enrichment 224

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) provides freedom of work, responsibility, challenge, participation in decision making, performance feedback, growth, and sense of achievement which leads to fulfillment of higher order needs of the famous hierarchy theory of need, which leads to the internal motivation and job satisfaction and ultimately organizational commitment of the employees. In this research the applicability of western research findings was tested in a different cultural and social context where organizational factors and work characteristics differs from private sector organizations. In Pakistan the government organizations are very much different from private sector organizations in the sense that in government organizations usually performance based incentives are not offered. What really matters are the social relationships with supervisors, colleagues and subordinates that lead to some social position in an organization. Promotions are associated with qualification whether formal or departmental and not with performance. In government organizations of Pakistan the rewards, performance pressure, workload, fatigue and responsibility is considered to be less as compare to private organizations of Pakistan. Employee also feels job security in government job as compare to private job. So these factors might have influenced the responses of the employees in the present study. In public sector of Pakistan the intervention of working conditions, and social relations should also be studied in future researches to better understand the antecedents of effective job designs and favorable work outcomes. The unit of analysis of the present research was the individual employee. Future research may carry out analysis at group or organizational level in order to make a comparative study and generalize the judgments of the current study. Still much research is needed to be conducted for the development of management literature in countries of south Asian region like Pakistan.

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Allport, G.W. (1935). Attitudes, 1ST ed., Worcester, MA: Clark University press. Brown, S. P., & Leigh, T. W. (1996). A new look at psychological climate and its relationship to job involvement, effort, and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 358-368. Business Week (1983). A Work Revolution in U.S. Industry. Business Week (May 16), Iss. 2790, p. 100. Dessler, G (2005). Human Resource Management 10th ed.,Pearson, Inc. Doyle, F.P. (1990). People-power: The global human resource challenge for the 90's. Columbia World Business, 25, 36-45. Goulet, L.R., & Frank, M.L. (2002). Organizational commitment across three sectors: public, non-profit, and for profit. Public Personnel Management, 31(2), 201-210. Hackman J. R. & Lawler E. E. (1971): Effects of job redesign: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3(1), 49-62. Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, R. G. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance,16, 250-279. Ketchand, A. A. & Strawser, J. R. (2001). Multiple dimensions of organizational commitment: Implications for future accounting research. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 13, 221-253. Koys, D. J. (2001). The effects of employee satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover on organizational effectiveness: A unit-level, longitudinal study. Personnel Psychology, 54, 101-114. Lawler, E.E (1993). From job-based to competency-based organizations. CEO Publication G 93-8 (228) Lawler, E.E., Mohrman, S. A., & Ledford, G. E Jr. (1992). Employee Involvement and Total Quality Management: Practices and Results in Fortune 1000 Companies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Locke, E. A. (1969). What is job satisfaction? Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4, 309-336. 225

[12] [13]

[14]

European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 23, Number 2 (2011) [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] Lundberg, O., & Gonas, L. (1998). Trends in womens psychosocial work environment and health, and structural changes on the labor market. Women, Stress and Heart Disease, 57-72. Luthans, F. (1998). Organisational Behaviour. 8th ed. Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill. Meyer, J.P., & Allen, N.J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Mitchell,T.R. (1982). Motivation: New direction for theory, research, and practices. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 7, pp. 80-8. Mowday, R.T. (1998). Reflections on the study and relevance of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 8(4), 387-401. Orpen, (1979). The effects of job enrichment on employee satisfaction, motivation, involvement, and performance: A field experiment. Human Relations, 32, 189-217. Porter, M. E. (1990). The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press. Salancik, G. R. & Pfeffer, J. (1977). An examination of need-satisfaction models of job attitudes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22, 224-456. Spector, P.E. (1997). Job Satisfaction: Application, assessment, cause, and consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

226