The Effects of Autonomy, Experience, and Person-organization Fit on Job Satisfaction: the Case of Public Sector

Although the past several decades of research on determinants of job satisfaction have generated a plethora of theoretical considerations among private and public management scholars across the globe, scholars has produced many conflicting findings. Research also shows that most of the studies are limited to the work cultures in developed western nations. Utilizing a subset of data from the International Social Survey Program on Work Orientations III module conducted in 2005, I conduct ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses to explore the relationships between job satisfaction and its key determinants in the public sector across 18 countries. For all countries, findings clearly show that organizational commitment explains the most variance in the respondents’ job satisfaction, followed by work experience and autonomy. On the autonomy, while autonomy regarding the control of hours was found to be negatively associated, the other two dimensions--ease of taking time off during working and organization of daily work– were found to be positively and significantly related to job satisfaction. In terms of work experience, the usage of past work experience and skills for the current job and helpfulness of the current work experience for future employment were both found to be positively and significantly related to job satisfaction. Job training, however, was not a significant predictor of job satisfaction.