Methodological approaches to job satisfaction measurement in hospitality firms

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a new unbiased, reliable, exact, and systematic method of job satisfaction score estimation. The method considers affective and cognitive aspects simultaneously.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey following the optimum allocation stratified sampling method was conducted in four up‐scale hotels of Tehran. Hotels' employees completed the questionnaires. Principal component analysis was used to identify facets, and the Friedman test was applied to examine their homogeneity. The Wilcoxon sign rank test and Pearson product‐moment correlation coefficients were employed to determine the most effective method among those investigated.FindingsThe weighted abridged job descriptive index (WAJDI) proposed in the study as a modified version of the job descriptive index seems to overcome the main limitations of the abridged job descriptive index (AJDI) and the perceived job satisfaction (PJS) methods when measuring job satisfaction in the hospitality sector.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper encourages researchers to consider different methods to assess job satisfaction along with WAJDI. However, although a stratified sampling approach was used, it focused on a limited sociocultural and economic environment, which limits the generalizability of findings. WAJDI must be used in different conditions to prove its efficiency in measuring job satisfaction.Originality/valueThis study assesses and compares the power of the AJDI method, which is a cognitive‐based structure, with PJS as a global, single‐item scale to capture the affective aspects of job satisfaction. By introducing a new method of job satisfaction evaluation, this study contributes to the literature.