Abstract
Living and working in a patriarchal culture that encourages modesty, female Emirati employees might face unique challenges such as a male-dominated work environment, higher emotional labour and lack of role models to follow. These challenges potentially shape Emirati women’s job-related attitudes and values in a way distinct from that of Western women. Thus, rather than relying on the results of studies conducted in Western countries, researchers should collect data from Emirati women to gain a more accurate understanding of their job attitudes. Consequently, this study examines the effects of some intrinsic and extrinsic factors on Emirati women’s job satisfaction. The factors include pay, promotion opportunities, job security, job difficulty, job content quality and interpersonal relations. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis based on data obtained from 364 female Emirati employees indicate that pay and promotion opportunities do not have significant effects, whereas job security, job content quality and interpersonal relations have significant positive effects, and job difficulty has a significant negative effect on Emirati women’s job satisfaction. The results further indicate that intrinsic factors explained 10% of variance in job satisfaction above and beyond the extrinsic factors and promotion opportunities. The article discussed the possible meaning of these findings in the context of working in a male-dominated work environment and living in a culture that encourages and values modesty.
Highlights
Working adults spend more hours at work than anywhere else when they are awake
This article aims to compare the effects of some intrinsic and extrinsic factors on Emirati women’s job satisfaction and to understand which factors are relatively more important for them. This understanding will provide insights for managers working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and to some degree, for managers working in the other Arabian Gulf countries (e.g. Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman) to facilitate their female employees’ job satisfaction
The 1997 data from International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) indicated that 17.5% of female employees in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries reported high pay, 18.9% indicated good opportunity for advancement and 73.2% indicated having job security (Clark 1998)
Summary
Working adults spend more hours at work than anywhere else when they are awake. it is important for them to increase the amount of perceived positive experiences (e.g. satisfaction, achievement, self-worth and friendship) and to decrease the amount of perceived negative experiences (e.g. stress, anxiety, burnout, fatigue and boredom) at work. Meta-analytic studies indicate that an increase in job satisfaction is associated with better mental and physical health (Faragher, Cass & Cooper 2005), higher task performance (Fried et al 2008) and organisational citizenship behaviour (Organ & Ryan 1995), lower absenteeism (Scott & Taylor 1985) and turnover (Carsten & Spector 1987) and fewer counterproductive work behaviours (Dalal 2005) Considering these meta-analytic findings, managers can better monitor their employees’ job satisfaction levels and design jobs and work settings that facilitate employees’ job satisfaction. Emirati women are reluctant to apply for private sector jobs and tend to restrict themselves to government jobs that are less demanding and that provide more flexibility and better salary and benefits (Nelson 2004)
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