Employee empowerment and job satisfaction: a case study of RC and SABIC in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

INTRODUCTION

Human resources are particularly important in service sector business due to the distinctive service characteristics of intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability. Employees can make or break an organisation; according to Ian Davidson (2004), employees are the most valuable asset a corporation has. The success of any company is directly linked to the satisfaction of the employees who embody that company; that retaining talented people is critical to the success of any organisation; and that no matter how temporarily challenged the economy may be, ultimately, a company's most talented performers always have other employment options (Freeman, 2005).

Employee empowerment is subjective on an employee-by-employee basis; what empowers one employee may not empower another. Employee empowerment includes trust, authority, information sharing, decision-making, accountability, and responsibility. Also, empowerment could have various other meanings depending on the industry, the company, the division, and the individual. Satisfaction is also subjective on an employee-by-employee basis. What satisfies one employee may not satisfy another. Generally, employee satisfaction comprises three main elements: individual value of the employee as perceived by the employee, employee training; and relationships with management. The study is based on a survey of employees of Royal Commission at Yanbu (RC) and the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).

The major objectives of the study include the following:

1. To indentify the major factors underlying employee empowerment and satisfaction;

2. To construct a model of employee empowerment and satisfaction to fit to the needs at the local level in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;

3. To analyze the extent of job satisfaction among employees in the Royal Commission and the Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation;

4. To evaluate the correlation between different measures of employee empowerment and employee satisfaction; and

5. To indentify the major areas, where employee empowerment can be built up to promote employee satisfaction for the efficiency enhancement of the institutions under consideration.

EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION

Employee empowerment is a concept that has been around since the dawn of mankind. However, the role it plays in organisations and its quest for understanding and business implementation has only been evolving for the past 50 years (Ripley & Ripley, 1992). Employees are the important asset companies have that can make a conscious effort for the progress of any industry or business; the effects employee satisfaction have on an organisation's business are numerous (Modic, 2005). Studies show that businesses that excel in employee satisfaction issues reduce turnover by 50%, increase customer satisfaction to an average of 95%, lower labour costs by 12% and lift pre-tax margins by an average of 4% (Carpitella, 2003). Not only are employee turnover, customer satisfaction, labour costs, and pre-tax margins improved by addressing employee satisfaction, but customers, products, and the companies themselves are also positively affected. Profit and growth are stimulated directly (and primarily) by customer loyalty, which is a direct consequence of customer satisfaction and is influenced by customer perceptions of the value of services they receive. Value is created by satisfied, loyal and productive employees.

The employee satisfaction study conducted by Big Builder (2003) points to a clear need for giving employees a greater role in business decisions. There needs to be a culture of participation in the organisation, which in turn creates higher retention (Leibowitz, 2003). When employees participate in the organisation they feel more valuable, especially when they see the "results stemming from their actions" (Calder & Douglas, 1999). When management creates opportunities for employees to add value to the organisation in ways other than those that fit the job description, it is unclear how to measure all the positive results that will occur. In the United States, they average one new idea a year per every five employees. Japan, who uses empowerment principles, averages five new ideas a year per every employee. Employees benefit directly from their own good ideas--in the form of increased profit sharing and improved workplace safety.

Every organisation that is involved in empowering employees defines empowerment according to their usefulness and scope. Even though it is difficult to assign an exact definition to the term empowerment, four general definitions are mostly used worldwide:

i. Empowerment means giving people their head, not just relieving them of minor bureaucratic impedimenta...It means top management explaining and delegating more while commanding less (Rock, 1994).

ii. For management, empowerment is the giving up of some control and sharing of additional knowledge of company goals and achievements for employees, its acceptance of the risk by taking more responsibility (Loretta & Polsky, 1991).

iii. Empowerment simply means encouraging people to make decisions and initiate actions with less control and direction from their manager (Handy, 1993).

iv. Empowerment is the process of enhancing feelings of self-efficiency among organisational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by formal organisational practices and informal techniques of providing effective information (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

These definitions of empowerment provide a comprehensive description of various aspects, including empowerment as a quality achiever, as a motivator, as an organisational process, whole restructuring, individual involvement, avoidance of powerlessness, and techniques to implement empowerment.

The idea of employee empowerment is a concept that is fairly unused when compared with the size of the employee population. Employee empowerment is closely related to employee involvement, a concept that is easily understood and more uniform throughout organisations. Employee involvement has been defined as "a participative process to use the entire capacity of workers, designated to encourage employee commitment to organisational success" (Lawler & Mohrman, 1989). High-performing companies will implement ways to involve employees in solving problems. Enabling employees to freely contribute in an organisation can have a substantial positive effect on a company. Keeping employees informed and getting them involved in decisions that affect their work builds trust and feelings of self-worth.

Involving employees makes them feel that they are trusted and needed, which increases their contributions and production. Four models of employee empowerment and involvement are reviewed here. Leana's model primarily deals with decision making; which can either be of a participative nature or of a delegative nature (Leana, 1987). Employee participation can be defined as "joint decision making between superior and subordinates" Delegation is the "process whereby the manager transfers decision making autonomy to a subordinate" Employees can either have partial control (participation) or complete control (delegation). Lowin defined participative decision making as "a situation in which decisions as to activities are arrived at by the very persons who are to execute those decisions" (Lowin, 1968). His model's effectiveness was dependent upon several factors, including the personalities and attitudes of those involved; the extent, importance, and visibility of the issues; and the value of the participation process.

Locke and Schweiger based their model on the participation process (Locke & Schweiger, 1979). The result of the model was an increase in productivity resulting from cognitive effects of involvement This includes a better understanding of the job and more direct communication and motivational effects of involvement, which consist of increased trust, peer pressure, and pride in one's work. Saskin's model focused on the psychological target of the employee involvement (Saskin, 1976). There are four general types of involvement, including goal setting, decision making, problem solving, and change. Saskin contended that the various types of involvement can produce "psychological and cognitive" effects such as psychological "ownership," development of shared norms and values, and information flow.

Empowerment is a principle that was implemented along with Total Quality Management; which was primarily targeted to enable and authorize employees to make products as good as possible. The obvious benefit was an increase in quality along with a reduction in warranty costs.

The important benefits of employee empowerment are innumerable and the most important includes the following (Ripley & Ripley, 1992; Spatz, 2000).

i. It increases opportunity for creativity and innovation, motivation to reduce mistakes and individuals take more responsibility for their own actions;

ii. Assists the continuous improvement of processes, products, and services thereby promoting customer satisfaction and also company's returns;

iii. Increases productivity by increasing employee pride, self-respect, and self-worth;

iv. Relieves middle and upper management from being the "control dogs" and from doing lower level tasks, thereby allowing more time for strategic planning and achieving a greater market share and customer satisfaction;

v. Increases the bottom line by such methods as reducing waste and building quality, while meeting customer requirements; and

vi. Increases trust and cooperation with management;

Thus empowerment has numerous benefits that are applicable to almost all aspects of an organisation. Some can easily be identified and listed as noted; others are more obscure.

Research done in England by John P. Carlos, revealed the emphasis that English business people put on confidentiality; to share information was seen as unnecessary (Schrecengost, 1996). Empowerment then would probably not be embraced by English companies. In fact, A.T. Kearney, a Chicago-based global management consulting firm, studied 100 British firms and concluded that only one-fifth of the firms thought that positive outcomes were due to an empowerment centered TQM program (Korukonda, Watson, & Rajkumar, 1999).

Research of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners found that the winners achieved their position due to the commitment senior management made towards training, empowering, and involving all employees with the goals to reach quality values (Boone & Kurtz, 1998). The study of Chenevert and Tremblay (2009) reveals that the use of an extensive relational empowerment strategy is significantly and negatively related to voluntary turnover when compared with a compensation program that rewards performance.

While globalization makes organisations more homogenous in terms of structure and technology, employees are likely to have unique behaviour embedded in their national and ethnic culture. Technology and human resources management have broad influences upon each other; Wickramasinghe's (2010) study focuses on employees' perceptions towards web-based human resource management systems in Sri Lanka. Employee involvement from the training and learning environment angle is the subject of discussion in Felstead's (2010) study. Studies done by Hocutt and Stone (1998) concluded that employees, when supplied with autonomy and adequate training to deal with service recovery problems, are more likely to be satisfied. The importance of leadership and transition is echoed by Manderscheid (2008); when leaders transition into a new leadership role in a new organisation there are few formal interventions, like a leader assimilation, to help them learn, adapt, and build relationships quickly with their teams.

The study of Kaya, Koc and Topcu (2010) aims to explore the influence of human resources management activities and organisational climate on job satisfaction in Turkish banks. The study examines the relative influence of behaviour and attitude, teamwork, training, policies, incentives, performance appraisal and feedback relating to the organisational climate and the resultant effects on job satisfaction.

Several notable companies have integrated employee empowerment as part of their TQM programs. Study of Lawler, Mohrman, and Ledford (1992), showed that 84% of Fortune 1000 companies studied had employee empowerment programs and these companies had reached great success almost immediately after the implementation of TQM and employee empowerment. In the early 1990s, Sears, Roebuck and Co. started to provide increased value of service to customers when authority was delegated to employees and individual stores (Boone & Kurtz, 1998). Delta Airport Inn in Richmond, British Columbia empowers its employees for customer satisfaction through a policy called "License to Please," and it is strictly enforced (Ralston, 1999). The tendency for decision makers to treat all decision making variables as external to the decision system--that is, as exogenous variables--overlooks important inputs to the system from sources internal to the decision, endogenous variables (Torraco, 2003).

United Airlines, Inc. has several ways to empower employees; front liners and customer relation agents must, whenever possible, resolve customers' complaints on the first contact. Travel credits, expense refunds, meal, hotel, and ground transportation vouchers will be given to customers who have experienced irregular flight operations (UAL, 1997). Work satisfaction has been widely used as an indicator of successful HRM practices in multinational companies in advanced Western and Individualistic cultures. The importance of interpersonal work relationships is highlighted in the study of Dutch organisations by Frederique Six and Denise Skinnter (2010). The study of Yamazaki and Kayes (2010) suggests that learning style is a stronger predictor of job satisfaction than culture and ethnicity, but not as strong as some control variables such as language skills.

Eunsang Cho's (2009) study centered on business ethics (Morals) from the Korean perspective; among four people centered core values, human centered management/ human resources development and knowledge sharing were the values preferred by the managerial group. The study attempted to prove that flexibility and capacity to change environment, vision formation, and implementation capacity are the major leadership values from the managerial group's viewpoint. Recent development in HRM and organisational science reflect the importance of interpersonal trust for sustaining individual and organisational effectiveness. The study of Morgan and Zeffane (2003) explores the effect that different types of change strategies may have on employee involvement and trust in management. Bates and Kelli (2002) analysed the implications of employee empowerment from the perspective of an efficient workforce.

From the foregone review of literature it could be seen that empowerment is a principle that is common among many industries. It is a tool used to accomplish various business goals and almost always leads to satisfied employees and satisfied customers.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

The present research is based on a model, which is a culmination of Employee Empowerment Models of Leana (1987), Lowin (1968), Locke and Schweiger (1979), and Saskin (1976). See Figure 1 for more details. Employee empowerment has three dimensions, viz. motivation, employee involvement and restructuring of the organisation. The present model gives more stress to employee involvement, which could be participatory decision making or delegation with full powers to the employees. The usual practice of employee involvement is partial sharing of decision making powers and the present model is based on this presumption. Here the decision making and decision execution powers, more or less, rest on the same person. Decision making and execution is encircling around three important variables, viz. persons, issues and process. The personality and attitude of employees are imperative factors that facilitate decision making and execution in an organisation, which is reflected in the team work spirit of the employees. The extensiveness and importance of the issues dealt with in decision making and their visibility are also important factors in decision making. The present model gave prominence to the processes involved in employee involvement and its value in decision making and execution.

Clarity of purpose (better understanding of job), recognition, fairness in job, morals, direct communication and healthy environment are the critical factors involved in the employee involvement process. These factors are a guide to direct motivational effects such as trust, pride and peer pressure on employees. The model considers four types of employee participation, including goal setting, decision making, problem solving and organisational change. The psychological effects of ownership, norms and values, and information flow are also given special mention in the model. As can be seen from the model, eight important employee empowerment and satisfaction measures are specifically identified for the study and are included in the questionnaire for collecting required information using specific criteria. The eight important measures consist of clarity of purpose, morals, fairness, recognition, team work, participation, communication, and healthy environment. These eight measures are highlighted as shown in figure: 2.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

All these eight measures are employee involvement measures for empowerment; however morals, healthy environment and recognition are direct employee satisfaction measures as well. So we can classify these eight measures of employee empowerment into two classes; those directly linked to employee satisfaction and those indirectly related to satisfaction. The latter means, through empowerment, employee satisfaction could be achieved. The former measures have twin relationship, that is, both to employee empowerment and employee satisfaction.

The two classes of measures are briefed as in Table 1. Smooth flow of communication between the managers and the employees is an important indicator of employee empowerment. In the present study three important criteria are used to measure the level of communication; which includes inflow and outflow of communication, and clarity and speed of communication. Clarity of purpose is better understanding of the job and duties. It is determined by the employee's position in the organisation, requirements and expectations from employees, clarity of functions and responsibilities of employees, systems and procedures of organisation, and clarity of vision and mission of the organisation concerned. In the study all these criteria are given equal weight.

Employee participation is basically focused on the involvement and the study uses four criteria such as employees' views in decision making and problem solving, availability of resources to exercise duties and activities, and information flow and participation. Decision making and execution is determined to a great extent by the personality and attitudes of employees, which is reflected in the efficiency of team work. The study gives much emphasis to this measure of employee empowerment and four criteria are included as the center of team work. They are team efforts, co-operation in problem solving, mutual care, and integrated work efforts.

One of the major measures of the decision making and execution process as part of the employee involvement are morals and ethics. The study used eight criteria to measure the morals, including, confidence of managers, employees' needs and their satisfaction, respects and acknowledgements, interactions and flexibility, likeliness of jobs, upliftment of spirits, manager's co-operation in problem solving, and transparent information flow. As discussed earlier, morals are also direct employee satisfaction measures along with empowerment. Another direct employee satisfaction measure is healthy environments. Positive work pressure, tension and interruption-free work environment, effective management of changing processes, motivation of professional growth, and development opportunities are the five important criteria used in the study to measure the healthiness of work environment.

Fairness is an important requirement for decision making and execution process as part of employee involvement. The study uses three important criteria to measure fairness, which includes transparent information flow, justice and neutrality, and confidence in the organisation. The last but not least measure of employee empowerment and satisfaction is recognition. The study uses four important criteria to measure recognition. It includes appreciation and reward, vitality and importance, support of managers, and expectation of organisation.

QUESTIONNAIRE

In order to collect data from employees on empowerment and satisfaction, a written questionnaire was crafted and distributed among the sample population. Based on the eight main elements mentioned above, questions were selected from previously-conducted employee satisfaction and empowerment questionnaires. The study has tailored 35 criteria scale by Al-Maghrabi (2007) to measure the empowerment components. Accordingly 35 questions addressing employee empowerment and satisfaction are collected and arranged into one of the eight measures previously identified (See, Figure: 2). Based on the complexity and number of questions asked, a questionnaire may sometimes appear overwhelming because some questionnaires can be complex; it was necessary to ensure that this survey instrument was simple to complete and not time-consuming. In order to accomplish this, the questionnaire was carefully reviewed. The average time for completing the questionnaire was about 5-6 minutes. Based on suggestions received throughout the development process, appropriate changes were made to the questionnaire in order to increase clarity, readability, and understanding of the questions. To measure the variables, respondents were asked to indicate their level of response using a 5-point Likert scale of "Strongly agree," "Agree," "No Idea," "Disagree," and "Strongly disagree," for each of the eight measures.

SAMPLE SIZE AND DATA COLLECTION

The study is based on a primary survey of employees in two major institutions in Yanbu: Royal Commission at Yanbu and Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation. Stratified random sampling method was used to collect data. The survey is based on 123 samples; among the employees surveyed 80 (65%) are from the Government service sector (Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu office at Yanbu--RC), and the remaining 43 (35%) from the company sector, (Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation--SABIC). The survey covered the staff at various levels in the hierarchy from top to bottom as well as at different cadres of job.

STATISTICAL TOOLS

Descriptive statistical tools such as mean and standard deviation at stratified data level as well as aggregate level along with correlation are used for analyzing the data. Through correlation analysis, the relationships between variables are identified; the degree to which the data points move in the same direction is referred to as the strength. Chi-square test is also used to analyze the independence of the distribution of data.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

The analyses of the data is provided in Tables 2 to 4 and Appendix Tables 2 to 5. The 5 point Likert scale recorded 3.92 as mean of employees' response to their present state of satisfaction. However, the consiseancy was too low among the employees' response on satisfaction as the value of standard deviation was quite high (Table: 3). Communication, clarity of purpose and recognition recorded the highest values of mean showing their relevance to the employee satisfaction; followed by team work, morals, participation, healthy environment and fairness. But from the consistency point of employees' response to satisfaction, recognition got much acclaim followed by clarity of purpose, morals, communication, participation, healthy environment, team work and fairness.

Among the eight measures identified for analyzing the employee satisfaction, break up analysis was made for RC and SABIC. The 5 point Likert scale based analysis reveals that communication, clarity of purpose and team work scored the highest mean among all the eight measures for the SABIC employees which are all indirectly related measures of employee satisfaction. See Appendix Table 3 for detailed analysis. It underlines the importance of employee empowerment to achieve employee satisfaction. However, among these three important direct measures of employee satisfaction with the SABIC employees, communication as a measure showed much inconsistency. Teamwork, healthy environment and clarity of purpose are the highly consistent measures of employee satisfaction among the SABIC employees.

RC employees identified communication and clarity of purpose as the major employee satisfaction measures with highest means, just as SABIC employees' response; however, in place of team work, RC employees' interest was in recognition (See Appendix Table: 4). All these three measures of employee satisfaction also showed better consistency among the RC employees' preferences.

The direction and extent of association between the measures and employee satisfaction is assessed by using the correlation analysis, as given in Table 4. All eight measures of employee satisfaction revealed positive correlation with the dependent variable with varying degrees. Healthy environment ranked top (with comparatively high correlation coefficient) followed by morals, recognition, team work, participation, fairness, communication and clarity of purpose. The correlation analysis also revealed close association between the independent variables. Among these, the association between fairness and morals, recognition and morals, healthy environment and morals, morals and clarity of purpose, etc. need special mention as the close association is so lofty that it can deliver extra mileage for the organisation through employee satisfaction. Thus it could be seen that the measures of employee empowerment identified are not only serving directly in employee satisfaction, but also assist each other with measures in stimulating the empowerment process.

Employee satisfaction at the aggregate level (both RC and SABIC), as given in Table 5, shows that 24% (approximately one-fourth) of the employees are completely satisfied with their present employment at the highest level (excellent in the Likert scale). Another 57% are satisfied with the present employment, even though they are not at the highest level. Around 10% of the employees responded that they are not at all satisfied at the present levels.

The inter-organisational level of satisfaction shows that among the RC employees 32.5% (One-third) are fully satisfied, and another 45% are satisfied (even though, not at the highest levels) with their present employment. In total, 77.5% of employees are satisfied with their present assignments in RC. On the other hand, in SABIC only 9.3% of employees have responded that their level of satisfaction is at the highest level. But, in general 88% of the SABIC employees responded that they are satisfied with their present assignments, even though the level of satisfaction is not at the highest level. Around 14% of the RC employees and 5% of the SABIC employees responded that they are not satisfied at the present employment. Even though, the unsatisfied employees constitute a marginal number, the authorities should take necessary measures to empower them to deliver the best for the organisation. The Chi-square test results are given in Appendix Table: 2.

CONCLUSION

The foregone discussion reveals that employee empowerment and satisfaction are the key pillars of any organisation towards its progress and development. The study identified eight important measures of employee empowerment and satisfaction, which include clarity of purpose, morals, fairness, recognition, team work, participation, communication and healthy environment. The study found that 81% of the employees surveyed in both RC and SABIC are reported to be satisfied at their present jobs (either agree or strongly agree). However, around 11% of the employees are not satisfied with their present assignments.

The disaggregated data analysis disclose that 88% of the SABIC employees responded positively for their satisfaction in place of 78% among RC employees. Correspondingly, amongst the employees responded negatively for their satisfaction only 15% constituted SABIC and the remaining are the employees of RC. That is, only 5% of the SABIC employees responded negatively for satisfaction levels whereas, among RC employees this figure constituted 14%.

The measures, which are found to have higher correlations with the employee satisfaction constituted healthy environment, morals and recognition. It points to the areas where the authorities have to focus in empowering employees and thereby satisfying them. There are also flows of relations between the measures, whereby strengthening the model, and results in enhancement of employee satisfaction. For instance, there are very high correlations between fairness and morals, recognition and morals, and fairness and clarity of purpose. The employees' survey remind us that fairness, healthy environment and participation are the areas, which warrants improvements at the employee empowerment and satisfaction level. The inconsistency of the independent variables such as fairness, team work and healthy environment flickers the variance of individual opinion between the employees.

The foregone discussion and analyses offers the following recommendations for the enhancement of employee empowerment and satisfaction in RC and SABIC.

i. The organisational success to a great extent depends on the employee empowerment and satisfaction, and as such special initiatives are to be taken to strengthen the missing links in this regard.

ii. Both RC and SABIC should take measures to improve the healthy employment environment at the organisation level through positive work pressure, tension and interruption free work environment, effective management of changing processes, motivation of professional growth and development opportunities.

iii. Morals as important measures of decision making and execution process should be strengthened through respect and acknowledgements, interaction and flexibility, job likeliness, spirit upliftment, and transparent information flow.

iv. RC and SABIC should take measures through appreciation and reward, vitality and importance, etc, for recognition and thereby intensifying employee empowerment and satisfaction.

v. The low rating of surveyed employees on fairness, healthy environment, and participation need special attention from the authorities in this regard.

vi. Morals, fairness and healthy environment are the areas of concern for the RC employees and the employers should take necessary measures to streamline the systems in these areas.

vii. Fairness, participation and healthy environment are the areas, where SABIC employees need empowerment to amplify their satisfaction.

The study highlighted job satisfaction as the positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or experience and it is the foundation of the success of any institution.

APPENDICES

Appendix Table: 1 Chi-square Test Results

Chi-Square Tests

                                                    Asy mp. Sig.
                                   Value      df      (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square              14.775 (a)     4            .005
Likelihood Ratio                    16.914     4            .002
Linear-by-Linear Association          .010     1            .922
N of Valid Cases                       123

(a.) 4 cells (40.0%) have expected count less than 5. The
minimum expected count is 1.40.

Appendix Table: 2 Descriptive Statistics Of Sabic Employees

                        Descriptive Statistics

                         N      Mean    Std. Deviation

Clarity of purpose      43    4.0000            .49952
Morales                 43    3.7475            .50251
Fairness                43    3.3682            .65421
Recognition             43    3.8488            .55404
Team work               43    3.9070            .34942
Participation           43    3.8256            .54153
Communicat ion          43    4.0698            .57532
Healthy environment     43    3.7105            .49227
Valid N (listwse)       43

Appendix Table: 3 Descriptive Statistics of RC Employees

                       Descriptive Statistics

                        N      Mean    Std. Deviation

Clarity of purpose     80    3.8244            .82443
Morales                80    3.5923            .84987
Fairness               80    3.2188           1.00196
Recognition            80    3.6906            .70589
Team work              80    3.5250            .92230
Participation          80    3.4677            .85040
Communication          80    3.9583            .83249
Healthy environment    80    3.3306            .88545
Valid N (listwise)     80

Appendix Table: 4 Symmetric Measures

                                 Value      Asymp     Approx    Approx
                                          Std Error   T (b)      Sig
                                             (a)

Interval by Interval              .009      .076       .098    .922 (c)
Pearson's R

Ordinal by Ordinal Spearman      -.091      .082      -1.005   .317 (c)
Correlation

N of Valid Cases                  123

(a) Not assuming the null hypothesis

(b) Using the asymptotic standard error assuming the null hypothesis

(c) Based on normal approximation

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Abdulmonem Hamdan Alzalabani

Reji D. Nair

Yanbu Industrial College, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Table: 1 Classification of Measures of Empowerment and Satisfaction

Classification                                Measures

Directly Related to Employee Satisfaction     Morals
                                              Healthy environment
                                              Recognition
Indirectly Related to Employee Satisfaction   Communication
                                              Clarity of purpose
                                              Participation
                                              Team work
                                              Fairness

Table: 2 Descriptive Statistics of Employees' Response

Descriptive Statistics

                                Mean     Std. Deviation     N

I am satisfied with my work    3.9187            .95466    123
Clarity of purpose             3.8858            .73013    123
Morales                        3.6465            .74844    123
Fairness                       3.2710            .89585    123
Recognition                    3.7459            .65884    123
Team work                      3.6585            .79139    123
Participation                  3.5928            .77370    123
Communication                  3.9973            .75204    123
Healthy environment            3.4634            .79005    123

Table: 3 Correlation Analysis Results (N = 123)

Measures         Correlations     Satis-     Clarity    Morals
                                  faction

Satisfaction     Pearson          1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    --

Clarity          Pearson          .216 *     1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .016       --

Morals           Pearson          .482 **    .640 **    1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       --

Fairness         Pearson          .326 **    .560 **    .722 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       .000

Recognition      Pearson          .419 **    .538 **    .658 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       .000

Team work        Pearson          .389       .448 **    .605 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       .000

Participation    Pearson          .346 **    .436 **    .544 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       .000

Communication    Pearson          .312 **    .307 **    .456 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .001       .000

Environment      Pearson          .491 **    .443 **    .645 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       .000

Measures         Correlations     Fairness    Recog-    Team
                                              nition    work

Satisfaction     Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Clarity          Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Morals           Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Fairness         Pearson          1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    --

Recognition      Pearson          .549 **     1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000        --

Team work        Pearson          .499 **     .510 **   1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000        .000      --

Participation    Pearson          .539 **     .450 **   .577 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000        .000      .000

Communication    Pearson          .478 **     .386 **   .482 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000        .000      .000

Environment      Pearson          .601 **     .500 **   .530 **
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000        .000      .000

Measures         Correlations     Partici-   Commun-    Environ-
                                  pation     ication    ment

Satisfaction     Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Clarity          Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Morals           Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Fairness         Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Recognition      Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Team work        Pearson
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)

Participation    Pearson          1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    --

Communication    Pearson          .592 **    1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       --

Environment      Pearson          .566 **    .591 **    1
                 correlation
                 Sig.(2tailed)    .000       .000       --

* Significant at 0.05 level (2 tailed)

** Significant at 0.01 level (2 tailed)

Table: 4 Employee Satisfaction: Inter-Organisational Analysis

                       RC Employees

Level of                       % of RC      % of
Satisfaction           No.    employees    Sample
                                            total

1. Strongly disagree    4        5.0         3.3
2. Disagree             7        8.8         5.7
3. Neither              7        8.8         5.7
4. Agree                36       45.0       29.2
5. Strongly agree       26       32.5       21.1
Total                   80      100.0       65.0

                           SABIC Employees               Total

Level of                         % of       % of             % of
Satisfaction                    SABIC      sample    No.    Sample
                              employees     total            total

                       No.
1. Strongly disagree    0        0.0         0.0      4       3.3
2. Disagree             2        4.6         1.6      9       7.3
3. Neither              3        7.0         2.4      10      8.1
4. Agree                34       79.1       27.7      70     56.9
5. Strongly agree       4        9.3         3.3      30     24.4
Total                   43      100.0       35.0     123     100.0