HRM Practices on Job Satisfaction

This paper is a case study of Samsung Electronics as a Telecommunication Company and the impact Human Resource Management has on the performance of employees. The authors define HRM as the means of employing people, developing their resources and capacities, utilizing, maintaining and rewarding their services in tune with the job and organizational requirement.

The case study takes a positive approach toward the employees and their contribution in the firm. Problems encountered during this process of HRM are mentioned to be lack of knowledge, failures of process and insufficient training.

For the author, HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an organization’s employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller,

1989). He gives a holistic analysis and claims that fields such as sociology, economics, industrial relations, industrial engineering and critical theories: postmodernism, post-structuralism, all play a major role.

He tries to establish the underlying linkage between the HR goals and the overall Organizational Goals and that there is a correlation between the two and that both should be effectively implemented and neither one can be neglected. One sets goals for the organization and one for the employees. A structured questionnaire was prepared which contains 21 items are used for collection of primary data. The questions were administered to the employees and the secondary data was collected from websites and magazines. This survey consists of random sampling method and the sample size is 100

The authors set job satisfaction or employee efficiency as the dependant variable and take many factors as the dependant variables, which would include the rewards systems, training, incorporating holidays and leave systems also.

These HRM practices, the authors suggest form a relationship; they influence employee commitment, and employee commitment in turn influences employee performance, which then impacts on the organization’s financial performance. This relationship model was simplified from an earlier more detailed one which Guest (1997) developed.

Mir Mohammed Nurul Absar et al, 2010, Impact of Human Resources Practices on Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in Bangladesh.

This study was carried out in order to prove or disprove a relationship between HR and Job Satisfaction. A deductive approach as well as an inductive one was incorporated for overall credibility of the research. Theoretical frameworks of the positivist and interpretive paradigms were followed.

The research was an exploratory one and wanted to find out why, its aim was an in-depth analysis of the following 8 hypothesis. HR practices have significant association with job satisfaction, HR practices have significant impact on job satisfaction, HR planning positively influences job satisfaction, Recruitment and selection positively influences job satisfaction, Training and development positively influences job satisfaction, Performance appraisal positively influences job satisfaction, Compensation positively influences job satisfaction, Industrial Relations positively influence job satisfaction ( Mir Mohammed Nurul Absar et al, 2010). The aforementioned HR practices were the independent variables and Job Satisfaction was the dependent variable.

Both primary and secondary data was gathered, a sample size of 91 manufacturing firms was taken. Primary data was collected through direct personal interview by means of the questionnaire.

The findings proved that Job satisfaction and HR planning are significantly correlated followed by Training and Development, Performance Appraisal and Compensation. This research would add to the credibility of any research as not only did it take a qualitative but also a quantitative approach.

Rizwan Saleem and Azeem Mahmood and Asif Mahmood, 2010, Effect of Work Motivation on Job Satisfaction in Mobile Telecommunication Service Organizations of Pakistan

The aforementioned Research Paper was done to find out the impact of work motivation on job satisfaction in the telecommunication organizations in Pakistan. It is a collaborative effort by three researchers analyzing the various components of the HR policies.

An attempt is made to make a direct link between job satisfaction and work motivation in the research paper whilst elaborating upon the need for HR policies to be effective in order to induce the maximum positive influence upon the employee. It stresses that previously there has been no attempt to link the human psychology with job satisfaction.

In the paper, the authors quote Aswathappa (2003) and discuss the determinants of job satisfaction that are wage payment and monetary rewards and different organizations employ different wage and other reward systems. The organizations pay wages and salaries along with incentives, perquisites, and non-monetary benefits. Velnampy(2008).

Work Motivation was the Independent Variable in the study and Job Satisfaction was the Dependent Variable. The study found out that there was a positive relationship between the motivation and job satisfaction. Also the methodology adopted was a survey-based descriptive research design. Employees working in two service provider organizations were given 60 questionnaires to fill out.

Overall the employees were quiet satisfied with their jobs and had their interest in their job. Variables that affect work motivation were mentioned to be various monetary rewards and other benefits, job involvement and commitment, job belongingness and job recognition. These come by way of interaction or by implementation of various HR programs to motivate the employee for job satisfaction and ultimately organizational performance.

The discussed paper can be of importance to this research project in many ways. It discusses man aspects of the HR policies and relates them to the work motivation or employee morale.

Ahmed Imran Hunjra, Muhammad Irfan Chani, Sher Aslam, Muhammad Azam and Kashif- Ur-Rehman, 2010, Factors effecting job satisfaction of employees in Pakistani banking sector.

This particular study stresses the importance of HRM practices such as job autonomy leadership behaviour and team work environment on job satisfaction. Furthermore it gives an insight to the key determinants of job satisfaction evaluating, in part, differences of male and female employee job satisfaction.

The scope of this study was wide and went across 3 cities in Pakistan, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Lahore. The above mentioned HR Practices were taken as the independent variables and Job Satisfaction was the dependent variable. A sample size of 450 employees was included, out of which 295 responded to the questionnaires and this survey was analyzed via the statistical package social sciences program (SPSS).

There are four hypothesis considered in the text. The null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference between men and women’s’ job satisfaction level and the first hypothesis states the opposite, that there is a significant difference.

The other three hypothesis are that the independent variables such as autonomy, leadership behaviour and team work environment have a significant impact on job satisfaction. The authors strengthen the reliability of the research by supporting each hypothesis with previous research authors and what their studies prove.

The findings of the study prove that there is a positive relationship between autonomy, leadership behaviour and team work environment and job satisfaction. Leadership and teamwork environment have a stronger influence than autonomy on job satisfaction. Also the results show a significant difference of level of job satisfaction between male and female employees.

Adnan Riaz1 and Dr. Jameel Qazi, 2007, the Impact of HRM Practices on the Perceived Organizational Performance, A study of Telecom Sector in Pakistan.

Recognizing the widely growing Telecommunication Sector and its substantial contribution to the GDP of Pakistan, the researchers carried out this study to find out the impact of HRM practices on perceived organizational performance.

They stress upon the rapid technological development and an increasingly liberal policy environment within the telecommunication sector. There has been a significant expansion of their telecommunication networks and remarkable improvements in quality. However, uniformity lacks in performance and policies across the region (Haroon, 2003). A brief history of the mobile services is drafted by the authors also as to explain the present competition within the telecommunication sector.

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HRM practices-training, performance appraisal, job definition, compensation, selection, career planning, were taken as independent variables and perceived organizational performance as the dependent variable. These variables were hypothesized to have a positive relationship with the dependant variable and results proved, empirically, that they did.

The research can be relevant to my project in the sense that the suggestions given by the author s are very useful to effectively incorporate and implement HR Policies to ultimately motivate the employee and increase profits.

Factors such as devising a comprehensive human resource training and development program with respect to the organizational, operational and individual needs were mentioned. Also the performance of the employees should be based on quantifiable data which would help then in turn to structure the reward system.

Emilio Bellini, 2006, Strategizing Human Resource Management Micro-practices in Knowledge-based firms: An Empirical Research in ICT Industry.

This article mainly focuses on the changing paradigm of the HRM practices with in the Information and Communication Technologies Industry. The reasearcher starts off by explaining the view point of various positivist and anti-positivist or interpretive approaches.

Importance is given to the, who, what, where and how of strategizing and organizing within the HRM departments. The basic stance by the researcher is that HRM practices are viewed basically as a cognitive and political construction.

The author goes on to explain a concept of “fit mania”, derives from a deterministic perspective of human action, from a reductionist approach to the strategic practice, something that is made from a small number of basic variables that tend to behave in consistent ways.

Traditional Knowledge based structures have been explained with relation to new emerging ones. Knowledge and HRM are seen to have a relation within the mentioned article. Whoever has the best knowledge for the most effective HR Policies wins. And so for making this particular research effective and the mentioned hypothesis a generalization, an in depth analysis was done of ICT industries.

HRM is viewed as one of the core competencies for an organizations success and variables such as non imitable, non-substitutability and rarity are mentioned. The author further explains how HRM now assumes a more proactive role and leads change rather than following it, (Pfeffer, 1994; Snell et al., 1996; Ulrich, 1997, Wright et al., 2001) such as the various strategies adopted for a more satisfied workforce to gain maximum productivity from them.

The researcher goes on the explain that previously many authors have used the concept of people, knowledge and competence as source of competitive advantage, however, the underlying theoretical framework was yet linked to a “fit view” both of strategy, and of HRM, such as in the cases of strategy as a dynamic alignment between the external environment and internal configuration of resources and capabilities.

Bradley, Steve; Petrescu, Alina and Simmons, Rob, 2004, The Impacts of Human Resource Management Practices and Pay Inequality on Workers’ Job Satisfaction

In this paper the authors investigate the relationship between Human Resource Management practices and workers’ overall job satisfaction and their satisfaction with pay. Data from the ‘Changing Employment Relationships, Employment Contracts and the Future of Work

Survey’ and the ‘Workplace Employment Relations Survey’ were used. The authors also make a distinction between union and union members.

HRM and its definition, in this study, has certain parameters. It has been divided as the following; work organisation, supervision, employee involvement, recruitment and selection, training and learning, and pay practices.

The methodology was simple, interviews and self-completion questionnaires were used. The one-hour interviews were personal, paper-based and totalled 2,466. The self-completion questionnaires were handed out together with the interviews and were replied by 2,349 respondents, a 95-percent response rate.

Factors such as personal, job and firm characteristics were controlled and the results showed that HRM practices do in fact raise workers overall job satisfaction, however, the relationship is significant more so for non-union members than those associated with or part of unions. Furthermore if these HR programs in the work place result in widened inequality of pay then workers may experience reduced satisfaction.

However, empirically, the study proves that HRM practices (independent variable) do in fact have a significant and some cases substantial effect on job satisfaction (dependent variable). Workers also enjoy on-going learning, job autonomy and working in teams which further enhances job satisfaction in return improving organizational success.

Dr. Bram Steijn, 2002, HRM and job satisfaction in the Dutch public sector.

This particular piece of literature takes into account the prevent changes in the business environment in both public as well as private sector companies. The author tries to link how HRM is largely applied in private organizations and not as much in the public sector. Since there has been a change in the labour force from the second half of the 20th Century up until now, the author stresses the important consequences of hiring and appraisal practices.

The author now describes the three variables for job satisfaction. This includes individual characteristics such as race, gender, educational level, and job characteristics such as income, supervisory position, full time work etc and the work environment. He stresses and quotes that have shown that variables linked to the job content and organisational context are better able to explain differences in job satisfaction.

Also the author recognizes Herzberg (1966) as one of the first who gave importance to work environment as the primary determinant of employee job satisfaction. The author of this study Dr. Steijn goes on to quote Reiner and Zao (1999) who prove that task variety is the most important determinant for job satisfaction.

Finally the author makes distinct four independent variables, individual characteristics, job characteristics, work environment variables, and variables related to HRM practices. The results show that there is a mixed degree to which these independent variables have an impact upon job satisfaction. Motivation is also one of the key practices that HRM should engage in. No matter what the degree or intensity, the public sector is declining due to a lack of HR practices implemented.

Peter K Ross and Greg J Bamber, 1998, Changing Employment Relations in Former Public Monopolies: Comparisons, contrasts and strategic choices at New Zealand Telecom and Telstra

This preliminary paper provides an analysis of changing Employment relations in the telecommunication sector. It reflects on how telecommunication companies enjoyed monopoly in many industrialised market economies (IMEs), but were affected by the deregulation and privatisation which exposed them to competition.

Competition in the telecommunication sector, in the article, was hypothesized as an offset due to advances in digital technology, the introduction of mobile telephones and fibre optic cable and greatly increased use of the internet.

Also there is an attempt to explain with the help of two telecommunication companies in New Zealand, TNZ and Testra, about companies moving towards new ER paradigms, such as, strategic human resource management (SHRM), total quality management, high commitment/high performance organisations, participative management and employee empowerment.

The article further discusses various Strategic Human Resource Management policies that impact the employee morale resulting in organizational performance. Where variables such as: competition, globalisation, changing markets, new technologies, and the notion that a firm’s performance is linked to its organisation (Kogut 1991; Burack et al. 1994; Beer 1997); were high lightened to have an impact on HR programs and practices to motivate the employees, arguments were put forth that stated that the role of SHRM was just more of a positive one.

The researchers simply debate about the effectiveness of HR policies resulting from the activities of the business or from external environments, what resources should used to best implement the rational strategies adopted and so forth. However toward the end of the article; after pursuing a qualitative methodology, competition and labour market reforms, including the union perspectives are claimed to be the overriding influences that affected the HRM strategies for both companies and in the sense, telecommunication industry in general.

Gedaliahu H. Harel and Shay S. Tzafrir, 1999, The Effect of Human Resource Management Practices on the Perceptions of Organizational and Market Performance of the Firm.

The aforementioned study aimed to establish a link between the firm level’s impacts from human resource management practices. The study was conducted in Israel from both private and public sectors.

It is an empirical study that defines the process of HRM as the recruitment, Selection, ILM, Training, Participation, Compensation and Grievance Procedure. The following factors would motivate the workforce; make them involved as well as establishing a good employee-employer relationship.

The variables as defined by the author are quite simple. Dependant variables include the organizational performance which is covers the quality of the product/service, new product development, ability to attract and retain essential employees, customer satisfaction etc.

The second dependant variable was mentioned to be the market performance which is only relevant to market organizations and focuses on economic performance, such as product price, sales increase, profitability, and so forth.

These variables were then put across a series of testing and surveys, asking the respondents and the results generated along empirical standards in order to establish reliability with in the study.

Results generated showed that the single independent variable found to be statistically significant in affecting perceived organizational performance was training practices. These practices affected the organizational performance because the employees would then feel empowered and equipped with the right information. There was a positive relationship seen between HRM practices and efforts and firms level of impact.