New Technology for a New Century
International Conference 
FIG Working Week 2001, Seoul, Korea 6–11 May 2001

Abstracts

Key words: Public, Official, Job, Satisfaction, Determinants.

Job satisfaction is an emotional reaction to an employee's work situation. This can be defined as an overall impression about one's job in terms of specific aspects of the job (e.g., compensation, autonomy, colleagues) and it can be connected with specific results, such as productivity. Recently, public sector in Korea has undergone drastic organizational restructuring process. With government officials, satisfaction with their jobs may have strong implication for improving the quality of government services. Especially, cadastral worker's satisfaction with his or her job may have a direct impact on the quality of services given to citizen. It is crucial for policy makers to measure the level of cadastral workers' job satisfaction exactly in order to improve the quality of cadastral services given to citizen.

The primary purpose of this paper is to develop and test multivariate model employing theoretically and conceptually relevant predictors of the cadastral workers' job satisfaction. The systemic sampling with random starts was used to collect data. The questionnaire included four demographic variables and five work environment variables. Responses to these questions show that 75% of the public officials in the cadastral administration were male. More than one third of the government employees in our sample have bachelor's degree.

To examine effects of both demographic variables and work environment variables on cadastral workers' job satisfaction, multiple regression analysis was used. Study results showed that public officials' overall satisfaction with their job, colleagues, and supervisors was relatively high.

Eight of the nine hypothesized relations between independent variables and satisfaction with work were supported. The only one variable that did not conform to hypothesized relations was the level of education. Skill variety turned out to be the best predictor of public officials' job satisfaction.

Our study results showed that eight of the nine variables were statistically significant predictors of public officials satisfaction with their supervisors, accounting for more than half of the variance (R2=0.51). The only one variable did not conform to hypothesized relation was the level of education. As expected, feedback from the job itself was the best predictor of public officials' satisfaction with their supervisors. This means that the amounts of feedback public officials get from their supervisors have significant positive impacts on the level of satisfaction with supervisors.

A test of the model produced an R-square of 0.56 for satisfaction with colleagues, indicating that over 56% of the variance was explained by the nine variables in the model. Eight of the nine hypothesized relations between predictor variables and satisfaction with colleagues were supported. The only one variable that did not conform to hypothesized relations was the skill variety. As expected autonomy turned out to be the strongest predictor of public officials' satisfaction with colleagues.

Up to now, we have reviewed factors influencing public officials' job satisfaction. In view of the negative consequences of job dissatisfaction, it makes sense to consider ways of raising satisfaction and preventing job dissatisfaction. Although public officials' job satisfaction might not explain all aspects of their job performances, it is crucial to try to increase satisfaction if for no other reason than to make them happy.

The model we have developed and tested here can be used to promote cadastral workers' the job satisfaction in Korea. However, this study, which was based on cross sectional data, has some limitations in predicting public officials' job satisfaction. Therefore, longitudinal studies should be made to increase the predictive power of the model among cadastral workers in Korea.

CONTACT

Professor Yunki Kim, Ph.D.
Department of Land Management
Chongju University
36, Naedok Dong
SangdangGu
Chongju
Chungbu 360-764
KOREA
Tel. + 82 43 2275 9446
Fax + 82 43 275 9446
E-mail: kim2875@chongju.ac.kr

23 March 2001

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