Relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction of the white collar employees: A Case Study

31

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND JOB

SATISFACTION OF THE WHITE COLLAR EMPLOYEES :
A CASE STUDY
Prof. S. K. Singh* & Vivek Tiwari**

ABSTRACT
The present study investigates the relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction. Motivation has been treated as
a dependent and Job Satisfaction as an independent variable. The respondents were the employees of one of the public
sector giants of India, BSNL and the data has been colleted from 45 white color employees (supervisors and above) of
BSNL, Saharanpur. Primary data has been collected by the researcher through two different standard structured
questionnaires based on a five pointer likert scale.
The results show a positive correlation between motivation and job satisfaction i.e., motivation increases with increase in
job satisfaction and vice-versa. The results of the study also indicate that, motivation remains unaffected of both age as
well as the length of the service of the employees. It may be because of the fact that the factors responsible for motivation
and satisfaction seem to be present in the working environment of the organization. The paper also finds the relative
importance of different factors that contribute to the satisfaction of employees; Compensation Package emerged as the
most important factor, whereas the Self Actualization appears to be the least important factor.

INTRODUCTION
Work plays a dominant role in our lives. It
occupies more of our time than any other
activity. We define ourselves in part by our
career or profession, it is very difficult to enjoy
life without doing some productive work, and
any activity which has so much importance
must evoke strong positive or negative
reactions from and these reactions tell how
satisfied or dissatisfied one is with his/her
work. Job satisfaction is so important in that its
absence often leads to lethargy and reduced
organizational commitment (Levinson, 1997,
Moser, 1997). Lack of job satisfaction is a
predictor of quitting a job (Alexander,
Lichtenstein and Hellmann, 1997; Jamal, 1997).

One of the most important factors that

lead one to their goals is the drive. This drive is
known as motivation. It is a zest and
determination with a kind of excitement that
leads one to persevere to reach greater heights,
in no matter what avenue of their life; be it
personal or professional. The drive may come
from an internal or external source. The
individual determines this. If managers know
what drives the people working for them, they
can tailor job assignments and rewards to what
makes these people tick. Motivation can also
be conceived of as whatever it takes to
encourage workers to perform by fulfilling or
appealing to their needs. According to Olajide
(2000), it is goal-directed, and therefore cannot

* Head & Dean, Faculty of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
** Research Scholar, Faculty of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011
Art_04

32

Management Insight

be outside the goals of any organization

whether public, private, or nonprofit.

affective attitude a feeling of relative like or

dislike towards something.

Akintoye (2000) asserts that money

remains the most significant motivational
strategy. Though way back Abraham Maslow
(1943), gave a model that shows that factors
that motivate an individual keep changing as
one climbs the ladder of age and maturity. And
also, achievement of one goal sets the ball
rolling for another one to be achieved. Thus, to
be motivated is a constant need. There are
times when one faces a period of de-motivation
and everything seems bleak. It is then that they
need to find what would motivate them back
into action.

Toby Marshall Egan, Baiyin Yang,

Kenneth R. Bartlett (2004) examined the effects
of organizational learning culture and job
satisfaction on motivation to transfer learning
and turnover intention. This study examined
the relationship of organizational learning
culture, job satisfaction, and organizational
outcome variables with a sample of
information technology (IT) employees in the
United States. It found that learning
organizational culture is associated with IT
employee job satisfaction and motivation to
transfer learning. Turnover intention was
found to be negatively influenced by
organizational learning culture and job
satisfaction.

According to Carlyle's Great Man

Theory (1888) an organization's achievements
are its employee's achievements. This theory
shows how important employees are for an
organization and how important it is that they
are satisfied, motivated and hence productive.
As it is a well known fact that these two factors
i.e., Motivation and Job Satisfaction have a
great impact on the performance of an
employee as well as the organization thus, the
study of relationship between these two
variables unarguably becomes a topic of prime
importance and of great interest for study and
further research. Before moving further let us
look at what other prominent and eminent
researchers have to say about these two factors
or what they have found earlier in their studies.
Review of Literature
Crites (1985) has aptly distinguished
between job satisfaction and job attitudes. He
observes, If it is some specific aspect of the job
such as duties and tasks or working conditions,
then the concept which is defined would be job
attitudes. If it is the overall job in which the
individual is presently employed, then the
concept would be job satisfaction
According to Keith Davis and John W.
Newstrom (2002), Job Satisfaction is a set of
favorable or unfavorable feelings and emotions
with which employees view their work. It is an

According to research done by T. A. Judge

and R. Ilies (2004) on Job Satisfaction, People
who tend to be positive and cheerful most of
the time do indeed tend to express higher job
Satisfaction than ones who tend to be Down
and Gloomy. They also added that Job
Satisfaction depends primarily on the match
between the outcomes individual value in their
jobs and their perceptions about the availability
of such outcomes-especially for those facets of
the job that are highly valued.
W.R. Boswell, J.W. Boudreau and J. Tichy
(2005) have given the concept of Honeymoon
Effect and Hangover Effect in relation to Job
Satisfaction. According to them, Honeymoon
effect is the tendency to enjoy high level of
satisfaction on new jobs that they have taken in
response to dissatisfaction with their old jobs,
while hangover effect is the tendency for
people's level of satisfaction to drop over time
from when a position is brand new to when one
gains more experience with it.
Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K.
Pandey (2007) worked over the topic Finding
Workable Levers over Work Motivation:
Comparing Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement,
and Organizational Commitment. The authors
Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

Relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction of the white collar employees: A Case Study

examine the effect of individual attributes, job

characteristics, and organizational variables on
three aspects of work motivation: job
satisfaction, organizational commitment, and
job involvement. They find that managers have
varying degrees of influence over these
different aspects of work motivation, with
greatest influence over job satisfaction and
least influence over job involvement. A number
of variables are important for work motivation,
including
public
service
motivation,
advancement opportunities, role clarity; job
routine ness, and group culture.
Motivation basically has two dimensions
(Anonymous, 2010), one being making
employees work better, more efficiently and
effectively from the point of view of
managers, the other being enabling
employees to do their jobs in the best way with
enjoyment and desire from the point of view
of employees.
Motivation and Job Satisfaction has been
considered to be affected by economic variables
and this fact cannot be denied but are not
sufficient enough to have a prolonged effect.
However, it is seen that appeal to the
motivating economic tools and expecting from
them more than needed does not seem to result
in success very much. Therefore, in planning
rewarding, encouraging economic tools should
be employed in accordance with employees'
needs. In fact, there are ways of increasing
employees' work motivation and satisfaction
other than monetary tools (Moncrief, 2010).
Yasemin Oraman (2011), worked to
evaluate the effective dynamics of work
motivation and job satisfaction of textile
employees. It analyzes the effectiveness of
psycho-social, economic, organizational and
managerial tools over individuals' motivation
in terms of maintaining the motivation and job
satisfaction of the employees in the business.
He came out with the conclusions that
economics tools by employee are positively

Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

33

and significantly related to the level of

motivation increase perceived by the
employee. Second regression model plays an
important role in determining the level of job
satisfaction except economic and psychosocial
tools and has a positive effect on increasing
employee motivation with implementations
carried out to increase employee satisfaction at
work.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Statement of the problem
There has been a lot of study in the area of
Motivation and Job Satisfaction still it remains
unexplored to some extent and yet a general
understanding has not been developed when it
comes to studies conducted at different times
and in different work environment. One of the
greatest challenges organizations face today is
how to manage turnover of work force that
may be caused by migration of a lot of
industrial workers. Therefore, it has become an
important area of research that how to reduce
turnover and absenteeism and improve
performance of an organization. Moreover, it
has been observed many a times that
employees who are satisfied with their jobs are
still not good performers. This may be because
of their lack of Motivation and commitment for
the organization; this point of view emphasizes
the importance of the study of Motivation and
its relationship to Job Satisfaction.
With this background in the present study
is an humble endeavor towards exploring the
dynamic relationship between the two very
important organizational variables i.e.,
Motivation and Job Satisfaction in one of the
public sector giants of the country BSNL.
Objectives
The present study aims at exploring the
relationship between Job Satisfaction and
Motivation of the employees in an
organizational set-up. The objectives of the
study are enumerated below:

34

Management Insight

1. To find out the Relationship between

Motivation (Y) and Job Satisfaction (X).
2. To explore the effects of Age and the
Experience on the Motivational Level of the
Employees.
3. To find out the relative importance of the
various Job Satisfying factors
Hypothesis
1. There is no significant difference between
the Mean Motivation Score of the high and
low satisfied employees.
2. Motivation remains unaffected of the age of
the employees.
3. There is no significant relationship between
Motivation and the Length of Service of the
employees.
Research design
In the present study, Motivation has been
treated as a dependent and Job Satisfaction as
an independent variable. Mathematically,
relationship between Motivation and Job
Satisfaction is as below:
M = f (JS)
'M' stands for Motivation and 'JS' stands
for Job Satisfaction
Then
independent
variable
(Job
Satisfaction) has been split into two groups: high and low with reference to the median of
the variables scores in question. Above the
median score is representing high Job
Satisfaction and below median score is low Job
Satisfaction of the employees. Thereafter, the
mean motivational score of the highly satisfied
employees has been compared with the mean
motivational score of the low satisfied
employees with a view to explore the impact of
satisfaction on motivation.
Data collection
As the research is descriptive in nature the
study relies on primary data collected from
white collar employees, working in BSNL,

Saharanpur. Primary data has been collected by

the researcher through standard Structured
Questionnaires.
Tool(s)
Two questionnaires one for motivation
and other for job satisfaction have been used.
Both the Questionnaires are standard
questionnaires and have passed the reliability
test. Each questionnaire consists of 10
questions and all are 5-point likert scale based
questions and the responder has to tick any one
from the 5-point responses ranging from 1 to5.
Response 5 gets 5 marks and 1 gets 1 mark.
Thus each individuals score will range from a
maximum of 50 to a minimum of 10 in both the
cases. We will consider 30 as a median score
and any score at 30 or above will be considered
as motivating and satisfying and below it as
non-motivating and non-satisfying.
Sample: The researcher has collected data
from 45 white collar employees i.e., supervisor
and above out of a population of 180
employees. The respondents belonged to
different age group (25-35yrs, 36-45yrs and 45
and above) and with different experience level
(1-10yrs, 11-20yrs and 20yrs and above)
through Stratified Convenience Sampling.
Sample Profile:
Table 1
Age-wise distribution of the
sample respondents.
Age (Years)
No. of Employees
%age
Below 30

12

26.6

30-45

24

53.4

Above 45

20

The profile shows that majority of

employees i.e., 53.4% belong to the age group of
35 to 45. It is apparent from Table No. 1 that
80% of the employees are below 45 years of age
which implies that most of the respondents
white color employees belong to relatively
younger group.

Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

Relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction of the white collar employees: A Case Study

Table 2
Length of service-wise
distribution of respondents
Length of service
No. of
%age
(in years)
Employees
Below 10

11

24.4

10-20

23

51.2

Above 20

11

24.4

The Table 2 gives an idea about the

distribution of the employees on the basis of
their years of experience in the organization. It
can be inferred from the above table that
majority of the employees (51.2%) fall under
the category of 10 to 20 years of experience. It
implies that the organization consists mostly of
rich in experience white color employees. If we
combine the above percentage with the
employees who are with 21 years and above
experience it amounts to 75.6% of employees,
this further substantiates the richness of the
experience of the employees.

35

DATA ANALYSIS
Table 3
No. of employees with high and low level of
Motivation and Job Satisfaction:
Level/Variable
High
Low
Job Satisfaction

38

Motivation

37

(Note: respondents scoring 30 and above

have been considered as highly job satisfied
and motivated)
It can be inferred from Table 3 that more
than 80% of the employees belong to the group
of highly satisfied and motivated employees.
This inference also tells us that most of the
factors responsible for satisfaction and
motivation are present in the organization,
while to further substantiate this we will go for
further statistical analysis.

Table 4
Motivation Scores of workers in the high and low Job Satisfaction Groups: (Median = 30)
Group

Mean Motivation
Score

Median of
Motivation Score

SD

Variance

High Job Satisfaction

38

39.52632

41.5

5.50472

30.30194

Low Job Satisfaction

27.14286

27

2.899683

8.408163

In Table 4, we bifurcated the motivational

scores of the employees belonging to the High
and Low Job Satisfaction groups and thereafter
the mean motivational scores of high and low
satisfied groups were calculated. For testing the
significance of the difference between the mean
scores obtained we calculated the Z-Static at
95% confidence level and alpha=.05 which
came out to be 8.759528. We compared this
with the critical Z value and found it to be
much greater and hence we rejected our first
null hypothesis.
The analysis provides ample evidence to
infer that: there is a significant difference
Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011
Art_04

between the Mean Motivation Score of the high

and low satisfied employees.
The Correlation Coefficient
To understand the extent and the nature of
relationship between the variables i.e.,
Motivation and Job Satisfaction the Karl
Pearson's coefficient of correlation was
calculated, we was found to be r = 0.822134, it is
evident from the Karl Pearson's coefficient of
correlation that there is a high degree of
positive correlation between the Motivation
and Job Satisfaction. It indicates that the
motivation of employees increases with the

36

Management Insight

increase in the Job Satisfaction level of the

employees and vice-versa. This strong positive

correlation between the two variables is also

evident from the graph shown in the figure 1.

Figure1
Graphical representation of the correlation between Motivation and Satisfaction

J o b S a tis f a c t io n

C o rre la tio n b e tw e e n M o tiv a tio n a n d J o b S a tis fa c tio n

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

M o t iv a t io n

Testing the Significance of a Correlation

Further, to ascertain whether the observed
correlation between motivation and Job
Satisfaction is merely due to chance or the
correlation is a real one statistical significance
was tested by using the value table. It was
found that the critical value given in the value
table was 0.374, whereas the correlation
between the two values was 0.822134 which
was much higher than the critical value given
in the table. Therefore, it may be inferred safely
that the correlation between the variables
under study is statistically significant and it is a
real one and not merely because of chance.
Coefficient of Determination
In our case r = 0.822134 thus r2 = 0.68 is
68%
Thus 68% of the variation in the value of
Job Satisfaction (Y) is accountable to
Motivation (X) in this case and the rest may be
depending on some other factors which are not
the part of the study so are considerer here to be
out of scope.
As we know that correlation only tells us
that there is a relationship between two or more
variables and it does not tells us the kind of

relationship that exists. So to further

substantiate our results let us find the
Regression between the two variables under
study and find what kind of relationship exists.
Regression analysis
As the coefficient of correlation tells only
that there is a relationship between the two
variables but it does not clarify the kind of
relationship existing between the two
variables. Therefore, regression analysis was
carried out to examine the kind of relationship
existing between Motivation and Job
Satisfaction.
The functional relationship between the
two variables under study may be understood
with the help of the line of regression of
motivation on Job Satisfaction.
M = a + bJ
(M = Motivation and J = Job Satisfaction
while 'a' and 'b' are constants)
We need to find out the values of 'a' and 'b'
and put it in the above equation to establish a
functional relationship between the two
variables. The final regression equation comes
out to be:
M = 10.95 + 0.72J
Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

Relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction of the white collar employees: A Case Study

Relationship of Motivation to Experience

and Length of Service
Table 5
Relationship between Motivation and
Age of employees
Age Group
(years)/
Motivation
level

Below 30-45
45- total
30
above

High

17

25

Low

20

total

12

24

45

Table 5 shows the distribution of

employees on the basis of there age and the
level of motivation they fall into. It can be
inferred from the table 5 that most of the
employees i.e., 70% belonging to the 35-45 age
group are motivated. While the case is
completely different in the other two age
groups.
To establish relationship between these
two variables the Chi-square for test of
independence of two attributes (Table 5) was
used that came out to be 0.081829. The critical
value at alpha = .05 and degree of freedom = 2
is 5.99.
Since, the calculated value was less than
the critical value hence the null hypothesis was
accepted i.e., Motivation remains unaffected of
the age of the employees.
Table No. 6 : Relationship between
Motivation and Length of Service
Age Group
(years)/
Motivation
level

Below 10-20
21- total
10
above

High

17

27

Low

18

total

11

23

11

45

Table 6 shows the distribution of

employees on the basis of there Length of
Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011
Art_04

37

Service and the level of motivation they fall

into. The above table gives an idea about that
almost 74% respondents belonging to 10-20
years of experience fall into the group of high
motivated employees. While more or less for
rest of the two groups the case is same as it was
between age and motivation.
To establish the relationship between the
two variables the use chi-square for test of
independence of two attributes came out to be
0.149983. The critical value at alpha = .05 and
degree of freedom = 2 was 5.99.
Since, the calculated value came out to be
less than the critical value hence the null
hypothesis was accepted i.e., There is no
significant relationship between Motivation
and the Length of Service of the employees.
The conclusions from Table 5 and 6 further
support the inferences that were drawn from
Table 3 that most of the employees are satisfied
and highly motivated because it seems that the
factors responsible for Motivation and
Satisfaction of employees are present in the
working environment and thus the factors like
Age and Length of service does not seem to
have much impact on the Motivational Level of
employees.
Findings & Conclusions
1. There is a significant difference between
the Mean Motivation Scores of the high and
low satisfied employees. This implies that
motivation is a function of job satisfaction
and its value does get affected with change
in the value of satisfaction i.e., the value of
Motivation increases with increase in the
value of Job Satisfaction and vice-versa.
2. There is a strong positive correlation (r =
0.822134) between the Motivation and Job
Satisfaction of the employees and the
functional relationship between them also
indicates that the value of Motivation
increases with increase in the value of Job
Satisfaction and vice-versa

38

3.

Management Insight

The Age and the Length of service of the

employees do not bear any impact on the
Motivational level of the employees.

4. The most important factor affecting the

satisfaction level of employees came out to
be compensation package which got the
maximum weightage (419/500). This was
inferred directly from the responses of the
employees which the employees indicated
in the questionnaire.
5. The least important factor affecting the
satisfaction level of employees came out to
be self actualization which got the
minimum weightage (280/500).
The sequence of factors according to their
importance in decreasing order for Job
Satisfaction, inferred directly from the
questionnaire responses of the respondents:

Compensation package

Responsibility at work

Empowerment at work

Achievement

Learning opportunities

Recognition

Growth opportunities in career

Challenging assignments

Job enrichment

Self actualization

Suggestions
Organization should focus its efforts more
on designing better Compensation Packages,
delegation of responsibility to workers, and
Empowerment of employees. Also it has been
observed that the level of Motivation among
workers who are above the age of 45 years is
low, though the reasons for that are not known
still organization should focus its attention on
that and must find out the reasons and do the
needful. The same trend can be seen in the
employees having experience of more than 20
years. Thus it makes it more imperative for the

organization to focus on it and come out with

some solutions as these employees are the
backbone of the organization.
REFERENCES

Akintoye, I.R. (2000). The place of financial

management in personnel psychology. A Paper
Presented as Part of Personnel Psychology Guest
Lecture Series. Department of Guidance and
Counselling, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Alexander, J.A; Liechtenstein, R.O, & Hellmann, E.

(1998). A causal model of voluntary turnover among
nursing personnel in long term psychiatric setting.
Research in Nursing and Health 21 (5), 415-427.

Anonymous (2010), http://www.bsm.gov.tr/kalite/

08.asp?sira=8 (accessed June 03, 2010).

Atkinson, J. W. A Theory of Achievement Motivation.

New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1959.

Boswell W.R., Boudreau J.W. and Tichy J. (2005). The

relationship between employee job change and job
satisfaction: the honeymoon- hangover effect. Journal
of applied psychology, 90, 882-892.

Carlyl Thomas, The Great Man Theory, On Heroes,

Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Fredrick A.
Stokes & Brother, New York, 1888. p. 2.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory>
(accessed on 12, Aug, 2011)

Crites, J. 0. (1985). [Review of the Job Descriptive

Index]. In J. V. Mitchell (Ed.), The ninth mental
measurements yearbook (pp. 753-754). Lincoln, NE:
Buros Institute.

Davis, K.(1988). Ypetmede ysan davranypy: Orgusel

Davranypy. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Egan Toby Marshall, Yang Baiyin, Bartlett Kenneth

R., The Effects of Organizational Learning Culture
and Job Satisfaction on Motivation to transfer learning
and turnover intention, human resource development
quarterly, vol. 15, no. 3, fall 2004

G. Jerald and Baron Robert A.(2009), Behavior in

Organizations, Work-Related Attitudes; Prejudice, Job
Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment, PHI,
9th edi. P.221-224

Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation

through the design of work: Test of a theory.
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance,
16, 250-279.

Ilies R. And Judge T.A (2003). On the heritability of

Job Satisfaction: the mediating role of personality
Journal of applied psychology, 88, 750-759.

Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

Relationship between Motivation and Job Satisfaction of the white collar employees: A Case Study

39

Kuruuzum Ayse, Cetin Emre Ipekci and Irmak Sezgin

(2008), Path analysis of organizational commitment,
job involvement and job satisfaction in Turkish
hospitality industry, Tourism Review j vol. 64 no.1,
2009, pp. 4-16.

Olajide, A. (2000). Getting the best out of the

employees in a developing economy. A Personnel
Psychology Guest Lecture Series. Department of
Guidance and Counselling, University of Ibadan,
Nigeria.

Moncrief L (2010). 5 Powerful Tools to Improve

Employee Motivation and Job Satisfaction without
Money, <http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/5Powerful-Tools-to-ImproveEmployee-Motivationand-Job-Satisfaction-WithoutMoney/1526591>
(accessed July 15, 2010).

Oraman Yasemin, (2011), Work motivation and job

satisfaction dynamics of textile employees, African
Journal of Business Management Vol. 5(8), pp. 33613368, 18 April, 2011

Moser, K. (1997). Commitment in organizations.

Psychologies 41 (4), 160-170.

Moynihan Donald P. and Pandey, Sanjay K. (2007),

Finding Workable Levers over Work Motivation:
Comparing Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement and
organizational Commitment.
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
abstract_id=975290> (accessed July 15, 2011)

New John W. and David Keith; Organizational

Behaviour, Tata Mcgraw Hill Pub. Co. Ltd., New
Delhi, 2002, pp. 207-211

Vol. VII, No. 2; Dec., 2011

Art_04

<http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm/PDF/
pdf2011/18Apr/Oraman.pdf> (accessed 20 Aug,
2011).

Tella Adeyinka, Ayeni C.O., Popoola S. O. (2007),

Work
Motivation,
Job
Satisfaction,
and
Organizational Commitment of Library Personnel in
Academic and research libraries in Oyo State, Library
Philosophy and practice (April 2007), Nigeria.

Vroom, V. H. Work and Motivation, New York: John

Wiley 1964.

WEBSITES CONSULTED

http://www.emeraldinsight.com.

http://www.icbs.com/kb/inspiration/kb_inspirationwhat-motivation-satisfaction.htm