Satisfaction and Productivity: A Study of Morale and Team Work in Industry With Respect to Productivity

Abstract

The present study is an attempt at contributing to our understanding of the problems of satisfaction and productivity in the work groups of industry. The cultural setting of India, in which this investigation has been carried out, offers a vast field of research in this direction. For here we find that rapid economic development is being tried through rapid industrialization for the people noted for conservatism, easy contentment and placid attitude. Bound by the shackle of long tradition, Indian working population differ in many respects from their counterparts in the Western countries. Again our present population, a sample of the working population of the South India, differ in some minor cultural aspects from the industrial population of the North. Keeping our minds free from the fetters of theories and hypotheses as far as possible, in the area of motivation, productivity and satisfaction we started with an exploratory attitude to seek further light. Like all the modern sciences, social science is essentially an unfinished process. The social scientist's task is twofold: that of synthesizing the available material into one concerted whole of definite theory and formulation of hypotheses. The second task falls in the realm of the group of empiricists, whose purpose is to report those events that are the product of human behavior in different social settings—the studies that can effectively be used as generators of hypotheses. The present investigation falls in the second category of social study. We report it with the hope that the criticism against or the appreciation of it would help us to improve our methods of research in the complex area of human behavior in industry. In this study we have attempted to combine the moods both of the pure and of the applied social scientist. Thus its objectives were divided mainly in two parts: (1) diagnosing and determining the variables in order to learn more about human satisfaction in industry and (2) to find out the relationship between the satisfaction areas and the most obvious material aspect of organizational effectiveness—the productivity. A population of 200 workers of a large manufacturing concern was interviewed with a structured questionnaire, designed to suit this study and constructed on the five-point scaling technique of Likert-type. Productivity of the individual workers was recorded from the percent efficiency ratings. The data were processed and analyzed and the major findings are as follows:

A. SATISFACTION AREAS:

In the area of employee satisfaction we assume that there is a basic incongruency between the need-fulfillment behaviors of the individual and the goal-achieving process of the organization. If both of them strive in their own ways for the attainment of the respective goals, then the gulf of incongruency widens resulting in more conflict and tension. But if the organization orients its policies and practices in the attempt to provide more satisfaction to its employees as one of its objectives, then we would find a happy organization steadily rising up in the ladder of increased productivity. Thus assuming the employee satisfaction as the resultant of the interaction between the personality "givens" (needs) and the organizational goal-directed activities, we put forward the following propositions for further testing: (i) In a social system individual expectancies conform to reality-oriented standards. (ia) The frame of reference for the level of aspiration is not the individual's present actuality in the social system, but the wants and needs act with positive valences. (ib) The level of aspiration in one particular area acts as a positive goal in that area only but is neutral to the variables in other regions. (ii) The present actuality and the immediate possibility for locomotion are highly interdependent on each other and they in turn are interrelated with other satisfaction areas. (iii) The satisfaction in the present actuality with respect to a particular area depends upon both the strength of need and the immediate chances towards the need-reduction. (iv) The total satisfaction in an organization is the interactive effect of the individual's level of needs with the environment. (v) As incongruency between the organizational goal-directed activities and the individual need-fulfillment behaviors decreases, the effectiveness of the total organization as such increases—the one of the measures of which is the higher indices for organizational satisfaction among the members.

The strength of need is very significantly related to all the satisfaction areas as well as to morale or general satisfaction in the inverse direction.

Age and experience of the employee have not any relationships with any of the satisfaction areas other than that of job satisfaction. It is found that if the salary level is fixed according to the age and experience of the employee, the satisfaction in the content of the job will increase.

With the level of education, it is found that rather higher educated will be dissatisfied with the mere routine types of job as we studied in the present study.

Satisfaction with chances for advancement in the organization bears significant positive relationship with all the satisfaction areas. The favorable attitude and perception of the supervisory behavior have strong influence in the area of satisfaction with job content. Thus it is observed that if the supervisory satisfaction is held constant, the relationship between the satisfaction areas of job content and that with promotion possibilities changes appreciably decreasing almost to zero. Similar is the case with pay satisfaction and job satisfaction.

In the areas of satisfaction with management and the satisfaction with company involvement, the same supervision plays a significant role as an interpretative variable.

The one important variable affecting the company involvement is housing in the company colony. Those who live in the quarters provided by the organization express a more favorable attitude toward the company than the other ones.

With the low levels of salary among the industrial workers in our country, obviously we can expect lower degree of satisfaction in the area of pay and economic emoluments. Indeed, this degree of satisfaction with pay affects in some inverse way the other satisfaction areas. The employees in our population show dissatisfaction with pay envelope rather because of the present high cost of living. But very few feel that they are being altogether exploited by the management.

With the area of teamwork we observe that size of the work group, continuity of membership in the same group over some period of time and in some respects age are the suggestive factors in the development of high teamwork.

As we studied the teamwork with respect to functional type of primary work group, the satisfaction with job content has the resulting effect on teamwork. We find that by partialling out job satisfaction, the relationship between teamwork and the strength of need of the employees decreases almost to zero.