Job Design and Job Satisfaction of Specialists - Nurses, Managers and Engineers

• Published in: Tímarit um viðskipti og efnahagsmál
• Main Authors: Einarsdóttir, Arney, Gunnarsdóttir, Sigrún, Eðvarðsson, Ingi Rúnar, Óladóttir, Ásta Dís, Minelgaite, Inga, Guðmundsdóttir, Svala
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Institute of Business Research 2019
• Subjects: Job design; job satisfaction; nurses; managers; engineers; M12; O15; Hönnun starfa; starfsánægja; hjúkrunarfræðingar; verkfræðingar; stjórnendur; Iceland
• Online Access: http://www.efnahagsmal.is/article/view/a.2019.16.1.7; https://doi.org/10.24122/tve.a.2019.16.1.7

The aim of the article is to present the results of a research on job design and job satisfaction among nurses, engineers and managers in Iceland. The results are based on data collected among individuals in the above-mentioned expert jobs in 2018, and the total number of respondents is 342, with response rate of 32%. Job design was measured in four dimensions – task characteristics, knowledge characteristics, social characteristics and contextual characteristics and a total of 21 sub-components. The results show a positive correlation between job design and job satisfaction, where the relationship between task characteristics dimension and job satisfaction was strongest and job design explained 35% of variance in job satisfaction. A difference between the general job satisfaction of these three groups of specialists is not identified in data analysis, but differences are, however, detected in the assessment of managers and nurses on the task characteristics with managers evaluating it higher than nurses. Engineers and managers also assessed the social characteristics of their work and the context of their work higher than nurses, while nurses identified the characteristics of knowledge higher than engineers. The key factors that have the greatest impact on the job satisfaction of the above-mentioned specialists are the variety of projects, feedback from others, independent decisionmaking, working conditions and the importance of work. The results indicate improvements could be made by providing more feedback to all three specialist groups, but also by improving working conditions and independence in decisionmaking by nurses and by creating a stronger perception of job significance among engineers and managers. Markmið greinarinnar er að greina áhrif hönnunarþátta og einkenna sérfræðistarfa á starfsánægju meðal hjúkrunarfræðinga, verkfræðinga og stjórnenda hér á landi og gera samanburð á því hvað einkennir störf þessara þriggja sérfræðistétta. Niðurstöður byggja á gögnum sem safnað var árið 2018 meðal ...