Faith and Job Satisfaction: Is Religion a Missing Link?
INTRODUCTIONA major influence on an employee's satisfaction at work is the subtle permission on the part of the employer to allow him or her to be a complete person, rather than making it necessary to leave important personal characteristics, such as ethnicity, gender or religion, at the door (Ackers and Preston 1997; Epstein 2002) This desire is not limited to one age group or education level; rather it affects the job satisfaction or dissatisfaction of many employees (Brief 1998; Kutcher et al. 2010).In the diverse workplace of the 21st century, a good manager works at creating an inclusive workplace where whole person expression is welcomed. Research suggests that such encouragement includes the accommodation of spirituality and the basic tenets of religious faiths (Ali and Gibbs 1998; Walker 2013) That is, understanding an employee's spirituality helps minimize misunderstanding and creates a healthy, accepting workplace. It increases job satisfaction.Job satisfaction can be defined as an individual's positive or negative attitude toward his or her job or workplace (Brayfield and Crocket 1955; Kinicki et al. 2002) Research suggests that there are extensive positive correlations between job satisfaction and important workplace variables such as organizational commitment, absenteeism, and low turnover (Judge et al. 2001; Mowday and Steers 1979; O'Reilly and Caldwell 1980; Petty et al. 1984) Hence, employee job satisfaction is presumed to be an important construct for managers to understand.Job satisfaction is a complex construct. Four basic factors are postulated to affect an individual's level of job satisfaction: (1) the nature of the work itself (Herzberg, 1987; Kim, 2005) (2) the individual's personality, demographics, and values (Judge and Larsen 2001; Locke and Latham 1990) (3) social influence (Van den Berg and Feij 2003) and (4) the individual's general life satisfaction (Jones 2006; Witmer and Sweeney 1992).Ghazzawi and Smith (2009) suggest that a strong religious faith could influence at least three of these factors. For example, individual values are often formed and strengthened by the religion the person is affiliated with. Social influence, in the form of religious teachings and communities, may affect how the person understands the value of his or her job. General life satisfaction can be enhanced by a sense of purpose in life, as is incorporated into many religious systems (Ellison and Smith 1991).Indeed, a number of researchers have found positive correlations between an employee's spirituality and his or her satisfaction with, and commitment to, the job (Barnett et al. 1996; Kolodinsky et al. 2008; Milliman et al. 2001) However, although spiritual commitment has been researched extensively in relation to job satisfaction and other work attitudes, religious commitment has been less studied (Cash and Gray 2000; Fry 2003; Moore 2008; Von Bergen 2009).This paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it contributes to the ethics literature by adding to the discussion on religion. As said before, in relation to employees the ethics literature has tended to emphasize spirituality (Kennedy and Lawton 1998; Kutcher et al. 2010; Moore 2008; Von Bergen 2009) but there have been increasing calls for more research on employees and religion (e.g. Conroy and Emerson, 2004; Furnham 1990; Ghazzawi et al. 2012; Ibrahim et. al. 2008; Kriger and Seng 2005; Moore 2008) This might be because spirituality is often self defined in individual terms (Duffy, 2006; Fry, 2003; Kolodinsky et al. 2008) which, arguably, makes it more difficult to study reliably (Hill and Pargament 2003; Milliman et al. 2001; Parboteeah et al. 2008) Please note that saying that spirituality is often defined in individual terms does not suggest that there is not a communal aspect (i.e. Milliman et al. 2001) merely that there is not a consistent group creed or defining set of beliefs.