Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
For years, I-O research has used surveys and scales to measure job satisfaction; however, a traditional survey may not always be the best option. Therefore, our research team utilized interviews as well as surveys to understand job satisfaction at the National Institute of Medical Research, Amani Centre (NIMR-AC). The Centre is in Muheza, Tanzania, a rural town one hour from the East African coast. We used a mixed methods approach with an aim to distinguish the key characteristics and variations of job satisfaction among the employees of NIMR-AC. The nature of the surveys, one-on-one interviews, and a focus group discussion were inductive. Due to the cultural context and the limited amount of I-O related research done in the region, we wanted to take a holistic approach in the search for significant themes. The current project discusses the influence that language and culture had on our research design. The end goal of the instrumentation design was for it to be culturally literate for the participants. We started the design process with a literature review of both job satisfaction and the few papers similar to the I-O psychology field that were in the East African context. This enabled us to better understand job satisfaction and how we could best investigate it for this site. Then, we gathered information regarding the interpersonal dynamics of the employees at NIMR-AC and the culture of the region’s workplaces to further direct our research. This gave us a better idea of what words and phrases would be best to use when translating to Swahili. Since we conducted the interviews and administered the surveys in Swahili, we had to pay careful attention to the translation of all the instrumentation. Lastly, and repeatedly throughout the design process, we sought the advice from experts in seemingly unrelated fields. The data will be analyzed using MAXQDA and SPSS in order to find themes. Analyses will provide the lab with real data pinpointing problems with job satisfaction and illuminating solutions. The current study aims to distinguish some of the differences of the design process when researching in a foreign context with the ultimate goal of encouraging other I-O researchers to investigate the workplace outside the Western world.
Date
October 2018
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Included in
Research design of job satisfaction in an East African medical research center
For years, I-O research has used surveys and scales to measure job satisfaction; however, a traditional survey may not always be the best option. Therefore, our research team utilized interviews as well as surveys to understand job satisfaction at the National Institute of Medical Research, Amani Centre (NIMR-AC). The Centre is in Muheza, Tanzania, a rural town one hour from the East African coast. We used a mixed methods approach with an aim to distinguish the key characteristics and variations of job satisfaction among the employees of NIMR-AC. The nature of the surveys, one-on-one interviews, and a focus group discussion were inductive. Due to the cultural context and the limited amount of I-O related research done in the region, we wanted to take a holistic approach in the search for significant themes. The current project discusses the influence that language and culture had on our research design. The end goal of the instrumentation design was for it to be culturally literate for the participants. We started the design process with a literature review of both job satisfaction and the few papers similar to the I-O psychology field that were in the East African context. This enabled us to better understand job satisfaction and how we could best investigate it for this site. Then, we gathered information regarding the interpersonal dynamics of the employees at NIMR-AC and the culture of the region’s workplaces to further direct our research. This gave us a better idea of what words and phrases would be best to use when translating to Swahili. Since we conducted the interviews and administered the surveys in Swahili, we had to pay careful attention to the translation of all the instrumentation. Lastly, and repeatedly throughout the design process, we sought the advice from experts in seemingly unrelated fields. The data will be analyzed using MAXQDA and SPSS in order to find themes. Analyses will provide the lab with real data pinpointing problems with job satisfaction and illuminating solutions. The current study aims to distinguish some of the differences of the design process when researching in a foreign context with the ultimate goal of encouraging other I-O researchers to investigate the workplace outside the Western world.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology