What Students Want: Elements of Job Satisfaction Expectations among Multicultural Cohorts

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to assess students' expectations of future job satisfaction. Data were collected from 484 students enrolled in the BBA programme at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Locke's job satisfaction theory and Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model provided the theoretical foundation for the study. Kendall's W was used to determine the degree of agreement between the current results and earlier research results and mean ranking was applied to determine the respondents' Top 10 expectations. One Way Anova was used to determine the differences among the multicultural cohorts. While each cohort had similar expectations by ranking, some cultural differences were evident. The results also indicate that today's students have different expectations for job satisfaction than employees of a generation ago. These findings may help employers prepare for the new employees they will hire through a foreknowledge of the new recruits' expectations of job satisfaction.