The effect of autonomy, training opportunities, age and salaries on job satisfaction in the South East Asian retail petroleum industry

South East Asian petroleum retailers are under considerable pressure to improve service quality by reducing turnover. An empirical methodology from this industry determined the extent to which job characteristics, training opportunities, age and salary influenced the level of job satisfaction, an indicator of turnover. Responses are reported on a random sample of 165 site employees (a 68% response rate) of a Singaporean retail petroleum firm. A restricted multivariate regression model of autonomy and training opportunities explained the majority (35.4%) of the variability of job satisfaction. Age did not moderate these relationships, except for employees >21 years of age, who reported enhanced job satisfaction with additional salary. Human Capital theory, Life Cycle theory and Job Enrichment theory are invoked and explored in the context of these findings in the South East Asian retail petroleum industry. In the South East Asian retail petroleum industry, jobs providing employees with the opportunity to undertake a variety of tasks that enhanced the experienced meaningfulness of work are likely to promote job satisfaction, reduce turnover and increase the quality of service

The Upper Aptian to Lower Albian syn-rift carbonate succession of the southern Maestrat Basin (Spain): Facies architecture and fault-controlled stratabound dolostones

Syn-rift shallow-marine carbonates of Late Aptian to Early Albian age in the southern Maestrat Basin (E Spain) register the thickest Aptian sedimentary record of the basin, and one of the most complete carbonate successions of this age reported in the northern Tethyan margin. The host limestones (Benassal Formation) are partially replaced by dolostones providing a new case study of fault-controlled hydrothermal dolomitization. The syn-rift sediments filled a graben controlled by normal basement faults. The Benassal Fm was deposited in a carbonate ramp with scarce siliciclastic input. The lithofacies are mainly characterized by the presence of orbitolinid foraminifera, corals and rudist bivalves fauna. The succession is stacked in three transgressive–regressive sequences (T–R) bounded by surfaces with sequence stratigraphic significance. The third sequence, which is reported for the first time in the basin, is formed by fully marine lithofacies of Albian age and represents the marine equivalent to the continental deposits of the Escucha Fm in the rest of the basin.The dolomitization of the host rock is spatially associated with the basement faults, and thus is fault-controlled. The dolostone forms seismic-scale stratabound tabular geobodies that extend several kilometres away from the fault zones, mostly in the hanging wall blocks, and host Mississippi Valley Type (MVT) deposits. The dolostones preferentially replaced middle to inner ramp grain-dominated facies from the third T–R sequences consisting of bioclastic packestones and peloidal grainstones. Field and petrology data indicate that the replacement took place after early calcite cementation and compaction, most likely during the Late Cretaceous post-rift stage of the basin. The dolostone registers the typical hydrothermal paragenesis constituted by the host limestone replacement, dolomite cementation and sulfide MVT mineralization. The Aptian succession studied provides a stratigraphic framework that can be used for oil exploration in age-equivalent rocks, especially in the València Trough, offshore Spain. Moreover, this new case study constitutes a world class outcrop analogue for similar partially stratabound, dolomitized limestone reservoirs worldwide