HR performance within Saudi Arabian organisations : is the relationship between 'job security and ill-treatment' and job satisfaction moderated by organisational support : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

HR performance, particularly employees’ performance, has been well researched in Western countries. However, many Asian countries, including the region of the Arabic Gulf, are still under-researched in relation to this subject. This present study quantitatively investigated employees’ performance in one of the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia. In addition, it took into consideration the religion (Islam) as well as the cultural characteristics that may affect performance in the workplace. Particularly, the type of society (collectivistic), losing face issue and power distance are the cultural characteristics discussed in this study. Furthermore, the study used four variables, which are considered important in relation to employees’ performance in the Saudi context: job security, ill-treatment (independent variables), perceived organisational support (POS) as a moderating variable and job satisfaction (dependent/outcome variable). The research question for this study is “Is the relationship between job security and ill-treatment, and job satisfaction, moderated by organisational support?” Previous research indicates that relationships between these variables vary in terms of how much they impact employees’ job satisfaction and, therefore, their performance. Some studies suggest that job security increases employees’ job satisfaction which can result in better performance. Others claim that ill-treatment can be a source of job dissatisfaction and lower the quality of job performance as ill-treatment impacts employees physically and psychologically. In addition, POS was found to have positive effects on job satisfaction as a higher level of support from organisations can lead to higher job satisfaction and performance. This cross-sectional, quantitative study used a questionnaire as the data collection method. Measurement scales used in the study were previously used in other studies, which strengthens the internal validity of this study. The 424 participants who completed the survey were Saudi employees who were required to have worked for at least six months for the same employer as full-time employees in Saudi Arabia. Results from this study suggest that, on an individual level, all three variables (job security, ill-treatment, POS) predicted job satisfaction in Saudi organisations. However, the regression analysis showed that job security had the biggest effect on job satisfaction followed by ill-treatment. Also, the moderation analysis revealed that the relationship between job security and job satisfaction was partially moderated by POS. However, POS did not appear to moderate the relationship between ill-treatment and job satisfaction

From social context and resilience to performance through job satisfaction: A multilevel study over time

Giving the crucial role of organizational context in shaping individual attitudes and behaviors at work, in this research we studied the effects of collective work-unit Perceptions of Social Context (PoSC) on individual work resilience and two key individual outcomes: job satisfaction and job performance as rated by the supervisor. We theorized that collective PoSC act as antecedents of individual variables, and that individual job satisfaction mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and job performance, and between work resilience and job performance over time. A sample of 305 white-collar employees, clustered in 67 work-units, participated in the study. Hierarchical linear modeling highlighted that collective PoSC are significant related to individual work resilience. Moreover, results showed that individual job satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and individual job performance and the relationship between individual work resilience and individual job performance. At a practical level, results suggest that interventions on collective PoSC may increase work resilience, job satisfaction and job performance over time at the individual level

Why High and Low Performers Leave and What They Find Elsewhere: Job Performance Effects on Employment Transitions

Little is known about how high and low performers differ in terms of why they leave their jobs, and no work examines whether pre-quit job performance matters for post-quit new-job outcomes. Working with a sample of approximately 2,500 former employees of an organization in the leisure and hospitality industry, we find that the reported importance of a variety of quit reasons differs both across and within performance levels. Additionally, we use an ease-of-movement perspective to predict how pre-quit performance relates to post-quit employment, new-job pay, and new-job advancement opportunity. Job type, tenure, and race interacted with performance in predicting new-job outcomes, suggesting explanations grounded in motivation, signaling, and discrimination in the external job market

The Influence of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment on Executive Withdrawal and Performance

This research examines the influence of job satisfaction and three dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e., affective, continuance, and normative) on the intention to leave, job search activity, performance, and leadership effectiveness of executives. Job satisfaction and the commitment dimensions were hypothesized to negatively predict the retention-related variables. Results generally supported the hypotheses. Job satisfaction had the strongest relationship, but both affective and continuance commitment showed an incremental effect even in the presence of job satisfaction. We also hypothesized that job satisfaction and affective commitment would positively and continuance commitment would negatively associate with general performance and leadership. As predicted, job satisfaction associated positively with performance, though not with leadership. Continuance commitment negatively associated with both performance and leadership

PerfXplain: Debugging MapReduce Job Performance

While users today have access to many tools that assist in performing large scale data analysis tasks, understanding the performance characteristics of their parallel computations, such as MapReduce jobs, remains difficult. We present PerfXplain, a system that enables users to ask questions about the relative performances (i.e., runtimes) of pairs of MapReduce jobs. PerfXplain provides a new query language for articulating performance queries and an algorithm for generating explanations from a log of past MapReduce job executions. We formally define the notion of an explanation together with three metrics, relevance, precision, and generality, that measure explanation quality. We present the explanation-generation algorithm based on techniques related to decision-tree building. We evaluate the approach on a log of past executions on Amazon EC2, and show that our approach can generate quality explanations, outperforming two naive explanation-generation methods.Comment: VLDB201

Investigation on the Relationship Between Business Performance and Business Satisfaction: Company Example

This research is designed to examine the relationship between job performance, job satisfaction and intent to leave work. The research consists of a research department in order to be able to reveal the relation between conceptual sections and concepts formed as a result of the examination and evaluation of the domestic and foreign sources in the literature. In the conceptual section of the study has been completed by exploring the concepts of work performance, job satisfaction and intention to leave the work in the literature, published articles, books and magazines. The concepts such as the collection of methods and data used, sample size of the universe were included in the study. A descriptive and relational screening model was chosen to test whether the performance of the staff, the job satisfaction, and the intention to leave the work as a model of the study. In the study, the results of the questionnaire method were analyzed and the findings were presented in order to express the effects of job performance, job satisfaction and job separation intention. As a result of the research findings obtained, evaluations were made and various proposals were made and the study was concluded.   &nbsp

What are the Relationships Between Job and Organizational Tenure, and Job Performance?

A pressing issue for companies with a strong focus on internal development is maximizing employee performance within a given role before the employee moves into a new position. Further, companies may seek to understand when the performance impact of firm-specific skills is greatest. Job and organizational tenure are some of the most readily available metrics organizations have for their employees. Yet the relationship between tenure and performance is not always clear. Two contrasting theoretical approaches underpin this relationship. Human capital theory suggests that performance should improve over time, because employees accumulate job experience, which provides them with more knowledge, skills, and abilities to apply to their work. In contrast, motivation and job design theories suggest that greater time in a role reduces employee motivation and engagement, resulting in poorer performance. Here, we will examine some findings on the connection between tenure and performance, with an emphasis on job tenure, and apply these conclusions to the unique circumstances of the oil and gas industry

Gender Discrimination and Job Satisfaction

This article defines the relationship between two factors and its impact by examining the effect of Gender discrimination in the work place which influences the job performance and job satisfaction in individuals(i.e.; hiring, promotion, salary, control/ autonomy/ influence, challenge, performance measures, feed back, in strumentality, stability/security). The data is collected through quantitative method. The sample of thestudy consisted of 500 employees working in different bank in Islamabad and Wahcantt (Pakistan) through the questionnaire, of which 300 were returned and processed. R was used to analysis the data, using independent T-Test, and excel, Correlation and Multi-regression analysis. There is a significant prove, gender discrimination has an influence on Job satisfaction and job performance and stability of individuals. From findings of the study, it is also depicted that male and female have significantly different level of job satisfaction

Aging, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance

The national trend to earlier retirement is surprising in light of conventional wisdom holding that older workers are healthy, satisfied and productive employees -- sometimes even more so than their younger counterparts. This paper examines whether conventional wisdom is wrong by reviewing existing studies and noting some of their most important shortcomings. New empirical evidence is provided on the links between aging, job satisfaction, and job performance using data from a nationally representative survey of workers