The Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and the Congruence of Desired and Perceived Job Attributes: An Exploratory Study of IT Professionals

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether employee job satisfaction is associated with the congruence between desired and perceived job attributes. The desired and perceived levels of 30 job attributes were measured on employees from a large Information Technology (IT) company based in Romania. Results indicate that employees who experience congruence between desired and perceived job attributes have higher levels of overall job satisfaction, confirming the assumptions of the value congruence theory. In addition, the results of this study show that employee job satisfaction is associated with both intrinsic and extrinsic factors i.e., job attributes. This indicates that extrinsic factors can also be a source of job satisfaction, the same as intrinsic factors, which is contrary to what Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory assumes.