Does cultural heritage affect job satisfaction? The East-West divide

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine the factors influencing workers’ job satisfaction aside from the conventional factors, in the light of basic cultural values and beliefs, and then to set this into a comparative perspective for three groups of countries: South-East European (SEE) countries, Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) and Western Europe. Cultural values are grouped into traditional vs. secular-rational values and survival vs. self-expression values. The main result of the study is that culture has a considerable effect on job satisfaction across all groups of countries under investigation. However, there are between-group differences in terms of the relative importance of specific cultural values for job satisfaction. We also find some evidence suggesting the persistency of cultures and slow-moving institutions.