Antecedents of Job Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia: Impact of Industrial Sector

Abstract

The exhaustive effort of Government of Saudi Arabia to standardize HRM practices across different industrial sectors in the Kingdom is expected to enhance the participation of its nationals in private sectors including SME’s. This study is an effort to understand the perceived level of job satisfaction, job stress, work place violence and role clarity after the enforcement of “Nitagat” program and various amendments in the present law to promote employee well being and employee participation in order to enhance job satisfaction.The study reports a moderately better level of job satisfaction across all respondents but constrained by industry type. In spite of the best efforts of competent authorities to ensure better work environment by amending and designing regulations a significant higher job stress and work place violence is reported in private sector as compared to public sector which has fared better scores on Role clarity and lower scores on work place violence and job stress. As demonstrated through Structural equation model, the relations between job stress, role clarity and work place violence across industry sector (public vs private) further implying that key practices pertaining to HRM still remain a concern to be addressed.