Abstract

During the last decade the issue of employee job satisfaction has received considerable attention. There are several obvious reasons for measuring satisfaction. Unfortunately, having information about employee satisfaction is futile unless the firm is willing to take positive steps where there is low morale. However, even where there is a commitment to action and a desire to collect reliable information about employee attitudes, there are at least two further problems. To date, no one has attempted to present managers with an effective strategy for determining whether their companies should conduct attitude surveys, and there is no groundwork for selecting appropriate job satisfaction measures. To remedy this situation, sociologists offer the following strategy, based primarily on their own research. Sociologists have discussed in the article the importance of asking a series of increasingly specific questions prior to advocating a job satisfaction survey. These questions are broadly concerned with managerial goals in conducting the survey, attention to corporate philosophy and structure, and the influence of employee characteristics and the external environment on job satisfaction. If a survey is to be conducted attention must be given to the selection of instruments by considering their theoretical bases, reliability and validity.