Psychological strengths and job satisfaction of representatives in the fertilizer industry

Abstract

Modern organisations everywhere are faced with many challenges in terms of economic viability and the way in which they manage their workforce. Amidst many societal and economic pressures, South African organisations are forced to restructure and reform in order to survive. In this context, uncertainties prevail which influence the South African workforce to a great extent. Organisations, therefore, would benefit from methods that ensure that favourable work-related outcomes can be created despite the environmental pressures. One such a work-related outcome is job satisfaction. In recent years, renewed interest in the role of dispositional characteristics (psychological strengths) in predicting work-related outcomes, resulted in many studies focusing on the predictive value of psychological strengths on job satisfaction. In the present study, the psychological strengths of sense of coherence, self-efficacy and locus of control are investigated in terms of their ability to predict the job satisfaction of agricultural representatives in the fertiliser industry. A correlational design was used to determine the relationship between the constructs of sense of coherence, self-efficacy, locus of control and job satisfaction. Data from the total population of agricultural representatives (55) was gathered and explained in terms of descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, skewness and curtosis). Cronbach alpha coefficients were determined for the measuring instruments and Pearson's correlation, . canonical correlations and multiple correlations were computed. T-tests were used to compare the job satisfaction of the contrast groups. Finally, a regression analysis was carried out to determine the extent to which the psychological strengths of sense of coherence, self-efficacy and locus of control predict job satisfaction.

The findings suggested that a relationship exist between the consecutive psychological strengths of sense of coherence, self-efficacy and locus of control, suggesting that the psychological strengths form part of the same construct (dispositional characteristics). Concerning the relationship between the psychological strengths and job satisfaction, the results indicated that individuals with a high sense of coherence experience significantly more job satisfaction than those with a low sense of coherence. Pertaining to the relationship between locus of control and job satisfaction, it was found that individuals with a high internal locus of control experience significantly more job satisfaction in terms of ability, achievement, authority, co-workers, independence, responsibility and supervision in terms of the technical side of the job. The findings also indicated that individuals with a low external locus of control and high autonomy experience significantly more job satisfaction than those with high external locus of control and low autonomy. Although significant relationships between self-efficacy and job satisfaction were expected, no such differences were found between the contrast groups in terms of their job satisfaction, which implies that self-efficacy was not related to job satisfaction in the present study. Concerning the predictive value of the psychological strengths in relation to job -satisfaction, the findings indicated that the psychological strengths predicted 20, 7% of the variance of total job satisfaction, which is practically significant. Especially external locus of control and autonomy were found to be good predictors of job satisfaction.