Sources of job satisfaction and organizational commitment: A study of Japanese industrial workers.

Abstract

Past research on Japanese industrial relations has focused on the "exceptionalism" of organizational practices (e.g., lifetime employment, a seniority-based wage system, and enterprise unionism) that lead to behavior rarely observed in the West. Most notably, a cultural explanation emphasizes the "unique" development of Japanese workplace organization. In contrast, this study focuses on structural conditions that shape varying attitudes among Japanese workers. For many years, scholars assumed that low levels of absenteeism, turnover and strike rates--all of which are characteristics of the Japanese labor force--were an indication of high levels of satisfaction and motivation. Recently, however, this portrait of the motivated, satisfied Japanese worker has come under attack. In particular, cross-national studies of workers' attitudes consistently report that both job satisfaction and the importance of work are lower for the Japanese than for their Western counterparts. Drawing on both internal labor market and "welfare corporatist" theories, the substantive sociological focus of this study is to systematically explore sources of job satisfaction and organizational commitment among Japanese industrial workers. The study uses a 1984 survey of 3,077 employees in twenty electronics plants in Japan gathered by the Japanese Federation of Electrical Machine Workers' Unions (Denkiroren). Guided by a multilevel causal model of work organization and work attitudes as developed by Lincoln and Kalleberg (1990), the study incorporates both attitudinal- and organizational-level data, which are grouped into five major classes of explanatory variables: work environment, industrial setting, worker orientations, labor force demography, and the character of unionism. The results indicate that corporate incentive mechanisms--particularly the intrinsic job quality factors of task rewards, participation in management decision-making, and welfare benefits--both increase one's commitment to the company and lead to improved job satisfaction. Moreover, the divided loyalty to union and company alike, which is characteristic of Japanese workers, is largely determined by the union's ability to promote worker participation in management decision-making, to maintain cooperative union-management relations, and to help implement welfare programs. Despite guarantees of lifetime employment in most Japanese companies, job security remains a fundamental concern of most workers. The importance of such incentives as corporate rewards and job security helps to explain the "exceptional" success of Japanese corporatism.