Vol. 17, n. 3, novembre 2024
STRUMENTI
Job Satisfaction Scale: Proprietà psicometriche nei dipendenti migranti
Tariku Ayana Abdi1 e Alessandro Lo Presti2
Sommario
C’è un crescente interesse per lo studio del successo di carriera dei migranti, che viene in parte valutato utilizzando la scala della soddisfazione lavorativa. Tuttavia, a causa dei ridotti sforzi teorici inerenti le carriere dei migranti e il loro successo di carriera, per quanto ne sappiamo, nessuna ricerca ha adottato la Job Satisfaction Scale di Pejtersen et al. (2010), ampiamente utilizzata. Questa ricerca mira a adottare e valutare le proprietà psicometriche della Job Satisfaction Scale di Pejtersen e colleghi per la sua precisione e ampia applicabilità per misurare la soddisfazione lavorativa. Abbiamo somministrato la Job Satisfaction Scale e la Career Satisfaction Scale a 251 dipendenti migranti africani che lavorano in Italia e ne abbiamo esaminato le proprietà psicometriche. Abbiamo analizzato l’affidabilità della scala utilizzando l’alfa di Cronbach, eseguito un’analisi fattoriale confermativa, e la correlazione di Pearson per indagare la sua relazione con la Career Satisfaction Scale. I risultati hanno mostrato che la Job Satisfaction Scale è affidabile e valida in relazione alla Career Satisfaction Scale. La scala ha inoltre dimostrato buone proprietà psicometriche ed è appropriata per l’uso a fini di ricerca e di intervento tra i dipendenti migranti.
Parole chiave
Soddisfazione lavorativa, Successo di carriera, questionario, Soddisfazione di carriera, Dipendenti migranti africani.
INSTRUMENTS
Job Satisfaction Scale: Psychometric Properties in Migrant Employees
Tariku Ayana Abdi3 and Alessandro Lo Presti4
Abstract
There has been an increasing interest in studying migrant career success, which is partly assessed using the Job Satisfaction Scale. However, due to the under-theorization of migrant careers and their career success, to our best knowledge, no research has adopted the widely used Pejtersen et al.’s (2010) Job Satisfaction Scale. This research aims to adopt and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Job Satisfaction Scale of Pejtersen and colleagues for its precision and broad applicability in measuring job satisfaction. We administered the Job Satisfaction Scale and the Career Satisfaction Scale to 251 African migrant employees working in Italy and investigated their psychometric properties. We analysed the reliability of the scale using Cronbach’s alpha, performed confirmatory factor analysis, and Pearson’s correlation to investigate its relationship with the Career Satisfaction Scale. The results showed that the Job Satisfaction Scale is reliable and has concurrent validity with the Career Satisfaction Scale. The scale has also demonstrated good psychometric properties and is appropriate to use for research and intervention purposes among migrant employees.
Keywords
Job satisfaction, Career success, Questionnaire, Career satisfaction, African migrant employees.
Introduction
Despite an increasing interest in studying migrant careers, research has lagged behind in theorizing migrant careers (e.g., Al Ariss et al., 2012) and assessing their career success. The term career success encompasses both objective (e.g., salary/earnings, occupational status, and number of promotions) and subjective career success (i.e., career and job satisfaction) (Hirschi et al., 2018; Spurk et al., 2019). To date, available research on migrant career success has focused mainly on objective career success aspects, such as migrants’ wages/earnings, occupational status, and career progress (upward vs. downward compared to their occupational status prior to migration, e.g., Rajendran et al., 2020) while overlooking the importance of the subjective job satisfaction aspect (Kifle et al., 2016). On the other hand, the few available studies assessing the job satisfaction construct in migrant employees use varied measurement scales, with little effort put into adopting/adapting measurement scales suitable for migrants’ career contexts.
For instance, To and Tam (2014) used a five-item scale developed by Kalleberg (1977) to assess the job satisfaction of Chinese female migrant workers in the Guangdong province of China, whereas Tian et al. (2018) and Kifle et al. (2016) used a six-item scale to assess the job satisfaction of migrant workers in Australia on an 11-point scale. Furthermore, Bloemen (2014) also assessed job satisfaction in terms of wages/salary, type of work, working hours, and career progress on a 10-point scale ranging from «0 = not at all satisfied to 10 = fully satisfied». Zikusooka et al. (2021), on the other hand, used a short form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), including 20 items on job satisfaction that assess ability utilization, achievement, activity, advancement, authority, company policies, compensation, co-workers, creativity, independence, moral values, recognition, responsibility, security, social status, social service, supervision — human relations, supervision — technical, job variety, and working conditions among Syrian migrant physicians in Turkey.
Despite the efforts to assess the job satisfaction of migrants for various purposes (mainly as indicators of career success or well-being), researchers have hardly agreed to a standardized scale (s) for assessing migrants’ job satisfaction. In particular, no study has been conducted to adapt/adopt the job satisfaction scale of Pejtersen et al. (2010) in the migrants’ career context. The job satisfaction scale of Pejtersen and colleagues measures job satisfaction in terms of subjective evaluation of a person’s work experience in terms of work prospects, work conditions, work abilities, and work in general. Thus, it is crucial to have valid and psychometrically sound instruments to assess the job satisfaction of migrant employees, particularly in a country like Italy, where migrants are increasingly becoming an integral part of the working population. Studies show that Italy is one of the top destinations for African migrants entering Europe (Achilli et al., 2016; D’Angelo, 2019). Thus, robust, valid, and psychometrically solid measurement scales, such as the Job Satisfaction Scale, are necessary in the context of African migrant employees’, where, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical research has been conducted to assess this construct among this migrant group.
Thus, this study aims to adopt the Job Satisfaction Scale of Pejtersen et al. (2010) for its precision and because it is widely used in the general worker population. To this end, confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests using Cronbach’s alpha were conducted.
Methods
Participants and Procedures
Due to the invisibility of and the difficulties in sampling migrants (Tourangeau, 2014), we collected data through Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn. Thus, in the end, we collected responses from 251 participants (59.76% men and 39.44% women), while two were missing values. The participants have been in Italy on average for the last 15.90 years (SD = 10.07). Their educational levels were: 28.68% master’s degree, 25.90% vocational, 20.72% secondary/high school, 19.52% bachelor’s degree, 2.4% primary school, and 1.99% doctorate.
Measure
The Job Satisfaction Scale is part of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ II; Pejtersen et al., 2010). The original version of the scale, which is in English, was translated into Italian and then translated back into English by bilingual professionals to keep the equivalence of the construct in both languages (Brislin, 1980). The scale measures job satisfaction using four items on a five-point Likert scale ranging from not relevant (1) to very satisfied (5). A sample item is «How pleased are you with your job as a whole, everything taken into consideration?» . The original scale had Cronbach’s alpha values of .82. Scholars suggest the heuristic acceptable cutoff value for reliability is .70 and above (Dunn et al., 2014).
The Career Satisfaction Scale (Greenhaus et al., 1990; Italian version: Abdi & Lo Presti, in press) is a five-item scale that assesses one’s satisfaction with one’s attainment of career goals for income, advancement, new skills, and overall career progress (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 1990). Participants responded to the items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). A sample item is: «I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for advancement». The original scale had adequate Cronbach’s alpha (α) reliability of .88. Several studies have shown that job satisfaction and career satisfaction are significantly and positively associated (e.g., Burke, 2001; Wassermann et al., 2017).
Statistics
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out using Mplus 8 software. Model fit was evaluated with comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized mean square residual (SRMR). Generally, values ≥ .90 of CFI and TLI indices are considered indicators of a good fit model (e.g., Vandenberg & Lance, 2000). For the RMSEA index, values ≤ .08 are considered acceptable fit model, values between .08 and .10 are mediocre, and values > .10 are not acceptable, while for SRMR, the cutoff value close to .08 indicates a better model fit (Gunzler & Morris, 2015; Hu & Bentler, 1999; Vandenberg & Lance, 2000).
Results
The CFA results showed that CFI = 1.00, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .06, and SMR = .01, indicating an acceptable fit for the data. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was also found to be adequate with the value of a = .89. The path diagram of the CFA results of the Job Satisfaction Scale is depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Job Satisfaction Scale: CFA — Path diagram (N = 251)
JobSat = Job Satisfaction Scale; Jobsat1 = Item 1; Jobsat2 = Item 2; Jobsat3 = Item 3; Jobsat4 = Item 4.
Moreover, our analysis showed that the Job Satisfaction Scale had a significant positive correlation with the Career Satisfaction Scale (r = .73, p < .01), providing evidence for concurrent validity for the Career Satisfaction Scale.
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, no research has examined the Job Satisfaction Scale of Pejtersen et al. (2010) in migrants’ career contexts, especially in assessing the career success of migrants, despite this scale being valid and having good psychometric properties. Therefore, this study’s objective was to adopt the Job Satisfaction Scale of Pejtersen et al. (2010) and examine its validity and psychometric properties in the migrants’ career context. The results illuminated that the Job Satisfaction Scale can validly and reliably assess the career success aspects of migrant employees. The findings also show that job satisfaction has a positive and strong statistically significant relationship with career satisfaction, consistent with the previous findings (Burke, 2001; Wassermann et al., 2017). Thus, the good psychometric properties of the scale suggest its suitability for both intervention and future research on migrant employees.
References
Abdi, T. A., & Lo Presti, A. (in press). Career Satisfaction Scale: Psychometric properties in migrant workers. Counseling. International Journal of Research and Applications.
Achilli, L., Fargues, P., Salamonska, J. J., & Talo, T. (2016). Study on migrants’ profiles, drivers of migration, and migratory trends. Migration Policy Centre.
Al Ariss, A., Koall, I., Özbilgin, M., & Suutari, V. (2012). Careers of skilled migrants: towards a theoretical and methodological expansion. Journal of Management Development, 31(2), 92-101. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621711211199511
Bloemen, H. (2014). Language proficiency of migrants: The relation with job satisfaction and skill matching. Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 14-148/V. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2523933
Brislin, R. W. (1980). Translation and content analysis of oral and written materials. In H. C. Triandis, & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology: Methodology (Vol. 2) (pp.389–444). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Burke, R. J. (2001). Workaholism components, job satisfaction, and career progress. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(11), 2339-2356. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb00179.x
D’Angelo, A. (2019). Italy: the ‘illegality factory’? Theory and practice of refugees’ reception in Sicily. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(12), 2213-2226. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1468361
Dunn, T. J., Baguley, T., & Brunsden, V. (2014). From alpha to omega: A practical solution to the pervasive problem of internal consistency estimation. British Journal of Psychology, 105(3), 399-412. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12046
Greenhaus, J. H., Parasuraman, S., & Wormley, W. M. (1990). Effects of race on organizational experiences, job performance evaluations, and career outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 33(1), 64-86. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256352
Gunzler, D. D., & Morris, N. (2015). A tutorial on structural equation modeling for analysis of overlapping symptoms in co-occurring conditions using MPlus. Statistics in Medicine, 34(24), 3246-3280. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.6541
Hirschi, A., Nagy, N., Baumeler, F., Johnston, C. S., & Spurk, D. (2018). Assessing key predictors of career success: Development and validation of the Career Resources Questionnaire. Journal of Career Assessment, 26(2), 338-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072717695584
Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural equation modeling: a multidisciplinary journal, 6(1), 1-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Kalleberg, A. L. (1977). Work values and job rewards: A theory of job satisfaction. American Sociological Review, 42, 124-143.
Kifle, T., Kler, P., & Shankar, S. (2016). Immigrant job satisfaction: The Australian experience. International Journal of Manpower, 37(1), 99-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-02-2014-0053
Pejtersen, J. H., Kristensen, T. S., Borg, V., & Bjorner, J. B. (2010). The second version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. Scandinavian journal of public health, 38(3_suppl), 8-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494809349858
Rajendran, D., Ng, E. S., Sears, G., & Ayub, N. (2020). Determinants of Migrant Career Success: A Study of Recent Skilled Migrants in Australia. International Migration, 58(2), 30-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12586
Spurk, D., Hirschi, A., & Dries, N. (2019). Antecedents and outcomes of objective versus subjective career success: Competing perspectives and future directions. Journal of Management, 45(1), 35-69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318786563
Tian, A. W., Wang, Y., & Chia, T. (2018). Put my skills to use? Understanding the joint effect of job security and skill utilization on job satisfaction between skilled migrants and Australian born workers in Australia. Social Indicators Research, 139, 259-275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1404-4
To, S. M., & Tam, H. L. (2014). Generational differences in work values, perceived job rewards, and job satisfaction of Chinese female migrant workers: Implications for social policy and social services. Social Indicators Research, 118, 1315-1332. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0470-0
Tourangeau, R. (Ed.). (2014). Hard-to-survey populations. Cambridge University Press.
Vandenberg, R. J., & Lance, C. E. (2000). A review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: Suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational research methods, 3(1), 4-70. https://doi.org/10.1177109442810031002
Wassermann, M., Fujishiro, K., & Hoppe, A. (2017). The effect of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction and career satisfaction among immigrants: Does host national identity matter? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 61, 77-87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2017.09.001
Zikusooka, M., Elci, O. C., & Özdemir, H. (2021). Job satisfaction among Syrian healthcare workers in refugee health centres. Human Resources for Health, 19, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00685-x
-
1 Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Management, Bologna, Italia.
-
2 Università della Campania «Luigi Vanvitelli», Dipartimento di Psicologia, Caserta, Italia.
-
3 Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Department of Management, Bologna, Italy.
-
4 University of Campania «Luigi Vanvitelli», Department of Psychology, Caserta, Italy.
Vol. 17, Issue 3, November 2024
