Job satisfaction of higher education graduates

ORI GIN AL PA PER

Job satisfaction of higher education graduates

Christos Koilias • Eleni Tourna • Kostas Koukouletsos

Received: 31 October 2008 / Revised: 26 November 2010 / Accepted: 7 December 2010 /

Published online: 28 December 2010

� Springer-Verlag 2010

Abstract In this study we evaluate and compare job satisfaction using a new

theoretical framework based on the theory of work values. A multi-criteria analysis

of satisfaction method is employed to measure the job satisfaction of graduates of

the Informatics Department and the Business Administration Department at Tech-

nological Educational Institute of Athens. The results of this study indicate that job

satisfaction is considered to be very high. This is mainly attributed to the work

environment, and the security and social status that come with the particular job.

Differences between the two departments are associated with how the earned money

is valued, the working hours and the security the job provides.

Keywords Job satisfaction � Theory of work values � Multi-criterion analysis

1 Introduction

Work satisfaction is one of the widely used and probably the most popular measure

in the area of work psychology and behaviour (Weiss et al. 1967; Spector 1997).

Work satisfaction shows the degree to which people are satisfied with their work

and the particular characteristics of the work. Some people enjoy work and work is a

central feature of their life. Others hate their job and only work for the income it

C. Koilias (&)

Informatics Department, TEI of Athens, 12210 Egaleo, Athens, Greece

e-mail: [email protected]

E. Tourna

Business Administration Department, SEI of Athens, 12210 Egaleo, Athens, Greece


K. Koukouletsos

General Department of Mathematics, TEI of Piraeus, 12244 Athens, Greece


123

Oper Res Int J (2012) 12:421–437

DOI 10.1007/s12351-010-0099-6

provides. Work satisfaction is linked to the workers’ behaviour in the workplace and

has considerable consequences not only in their lives but also in the running of an

organization or business where they are working. A high level of work satisfaction

means happy working people and happy working people means an efficient business

with committed personnel.

Fraze (1986) has indicated that the success of an educational programme, or of a

higher educational degree earned, can be measured in terms of career choice and job

satisfaction. Irani and Scherler (2002) highlighted that job satisfaction may

represent an outcome measure of the effectiveness of an academic programme that

can suggest ways of responding to the educational needs of students in a particular

field, as well as imply directions for future curriculum and programme development.

Grilli and Rampichini (2007) indicate that part of a university’s evaluation should

be the study of graduates’ job satisfaction. Lately, public educational institutes are

challenged by private universities and colleges in Greece. It is quite important that

Higher Education Institutes improve their competence and efficiency.

The purpose of this study is to describe and explore factors affecting the job

satisfaction of graduates drawn from a Higher Technological Education Institute.

The theory of work values, linked to motivation, and the MUSA method, a multi-

criteria decision method, are used to examine the graduates’ satisfaction from

different factors of their work environment. To our knowledge, there are limited

research efforts trying to combine Multi-Criteria Decision Aiding methods with

motivation theories.

This paper, involving graduates from the Informatics Department and the

Business Administration Department of TEI of Athens, has the following

objectives:

• to explore the global job satisfaction of the graduates;

• to investigate the criteria and subcriteria which graduates use to highlight their

satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their job; and

• to identify any differences in the factors that affect job satisfaction between the

two groups of graduates.

The findings of this research could be of value for the following reason. First the

information from a Higher Technological Education Institute with a proven

reputation in the job market could serve as a benchmark for other educational

programmes in the same fields. Second, the information could be used to improve

the curriculum and the education offered at the Institute. Third, the information

would help undergraduates to form a clear picture of future work benefits and job

satisfaction once they graduate; this is also true for people intending to pursue a

degree in a Technological Institute. Finally, it is assumed that information on job

satisfaction of recent graduates would be of benefit to the job market.

The main body of the paper is divided into four sections. The theoretical

framework adopted to investigate the extent of work satisfaction is presented next,

in section two. Section three describes the methodology adopted which includes the

design of the research, the description of the samples used and the structure of the

questionnaire. Section four describes the analysis and the results, and section five

presents the conclusions of the study.

422 C. Koilias et al.

123

2 Theoretical framework

From the early days, research into the area of work satisfaction was linked to the

satisfaction of personal needs and the focus of research was on the extent to which

work was fulfilling the physical and psychological needs related to employees’

work, such as salary, job security, etc. (Salancik and Pfeffer 1977). Several

researchers based on the above theories have developed different instruments and

scales to measure job satisfaction (Weiss et al. 1967; Hackman and Oldham 1975;

Ironson et al. 1989). Nowadays, researchers focus on the conceptual processes

carried out when people declare that they feel satisfied or not satisfied (Spector

1997).

Despite the few previous research efforts, there is a lack of well defined research

theoretical models in the study of global work satisfaction. Furthermore, some

scales of job satisfaction suffer from several limitations if they were to be used in

this study: many diverse factors are used to define and empirically measure job

satisfaction; the different aspects of work satisfaction are not classified; most of the

models are general models for the study of the job satisfaction.

Hoppock and Super (1950) observed that generalized expressions of job

satisfaction tended to relate to expressions of satisfaction with specific beliefs

people hold about their work such as earnings, hours worked, advancement,

opportunity to find a job, opportunity to help others, relation with superiors and

co-workers, professional development and promotion, independence and others.

Super (1957) suggested that the above characteristics and the related benefits

from work are differently valued by the employed workers. These characteristics are

used as criteria for job selection; they are associated with job satisfaction; and they

can explain both productivity and the workers’ intention to stay in the same job.

Super (1957) named these characteristics ‘‘work values’’ and he founded a new

theoretical framework that can be used to study workers’ job selection and job

satisfaction. Work values are a specific subset of the human values related to alls

aspects of a person’s work life.

Many researchers in the field of vocational choice and job satisfaction in several

disciplines, advocate the use of work values as a theoretical framework (e.g., Brown

1995; Kinnier 1995; Rokeach 1973, 1977; Super 1990; Super and Sverko 1995).

The current study employs this theoretical framework, the theory of work values

(Super 1957, 1981, 1995; Super and Sverko 1995), which uses all the aspects

involved in measuring job satisfaction.

Several vocational studies have identified different aspects/work values that

affect job satisfaction. Zytowski (1970) outlined a range of relevant aspects/work

values. Subsequent work values researchers have sought to identify a set of general

broad types of aspects of work values (Ginnzberg et al. 1951; Elizur et al. 1991;

Marini et al. 1996; Ros et al. 1999). The most widely used approach classifies work

values as intrinsic or extrinsic, but the adequacy of the intrinsic-extrinsic dichotomy

has been questioned (Ros et al. 1999). Ginnzberg et al. (1951) formulated three

categories: extrinsic satisfactions in the form of rewards (money and work

conditions), concomitants of work (social and environmental) and intrinsic

satisfaction (pleasure in the activity and in the accomplishment of specifics ends).

Job satisfaction of higher education graduates 423

123

In the present study, the following three general categories of factors, based on the

theory of work values, have been used to measure graduates’ job satisfaction.

Extrinsic factors express conservation values: salary, other economic benefits and

work conditions such as easy access to work, working hours, general work load, and

holidays.

Intrinsic factors directly express openness to change values: interesting nature of

work, personal growth, job security, advancement, and participation in decision

making.

Relations—Social factors express the pursuit of self-transcendence values; work

is seen as a vehicle for positive social relations, achieving high social status,

contributing to society, and work with others.

Table 1 shows the factors used in the current study with a short description for

each one of them.

3 Research methodology

The current study is part of a large-scale research project about the employment of

the TEI of Athens graduates. The project was commissioned after an open invitation

Table 1 Description of factors

Source: Adopted from Pryor

(1983), Nevill and Super (1986),

Elizur et al. (1991), Ros et al.

(1999)

Factors Description

Extrinsic

Salary Obtaining large salary from one’s work

Work conditions Kind of physical environment in which one

works

Hours of work Total working hours and type of working

pattern (flexible or normal)

Access to work How one commutes to work and time taken

Holidays Duration of holidays and how easy it is to

have them

Intrinsic

Interesting Doing something interesting and

challenging

Personal growth Learning new things

Advancement/

Promotion

Promotion to higher ranks

Decision making Participation in decision making

Security Being able to maintain one’s job

Relations-Social

Social status Recognition and status in the eyes of others

Relation to high level

management

Having good working relationship with

superiors

Work with others Friendship and understanding from those

with whom one works

Social responsibility Job that contributes to society and helps

others


123

to interested parties and research groups. A questionnaire about graduate

employment was distributed to graduates of all the departments of TEI of Athens.

To that questionnaire a section was added that referred to measuring job

satisfaction. This section was completed only by graduates of the above

departments.

3.1 Multicriteria analysis method

The MUSA method (Siskos et al. 1998; Grigoroudis and Siskos 2000; Grigoroudis

and Siskos 2002; Siskos and Grigoroudis 2002) was employed to assess the job

satisfaction of the graduates interviewed. The MUSA has been successfully

implemented in many customer satisfaction surveys. Furthermore, the method may

be applied to evaluate satisfaction of voters or shareholders, to gauge expectations

and needs of a labour market, or to assess business organizations (Grigoroudis and

Siskos 2002). The method has also been used in research related to the evaluation of

educational systems and academic satisfaction (Siskos et al. 2001; Politis and Siskos

2004; Koilias 2005).

The basic principle of the MUSA method is the aggregation of individual

judgements into a collective value function, assuming that customers’ global

satisfaction depends on a set of criteria representing service characteristic dimensions.

This preference disaggregation methodology is implemented through an ordinal

regression based approach in the field of multicriteria analysis used for the

assessment of a set of marginal satisfaction functions in such a way that the global

satisfaction criterion becomes as consisted as possible with customers’ judgements.

According to the survey, each graduate is asked to express his/her global

satisfaction and his/her satisfaction with regard to a set of discrete criteria. The

problem is approached as a problem of qualitative regression and solved via special

linear programming formulations, where the sum of deviations between global

satisfaction evaluation explicably expressed by graduates and the one resulting from

their multicriteria satisfaction evaluations is minimized.

The main results from the aforementioned preference disaggregation approach

are focused on global and partial explanatory analysis. Global explanatory analysis

lays emphasis on graduates’ global satisfaction and its primary dimensions, while

partial explanatory analysis focuses on each criterion and their relevant parameters

separately.

Satisfaction analysis results, in more detail, consist of:

• Average satisfaction indices: they show in a range of 0–100% the level of

global/partial satisfaction of the graduates.

• Weights of criteria/subcriteria: they show the relative importance within a set of

criteria or subcriteria.

• Average demanding indices: they show in a range of -100 to 100% the

demanding level of graduates. Non-demanding students (index -100%) are those

who declare satisfied even if the percentage of their fulfilled expectations is low.

An index of 0% indicates ‘‘normal’’ students who the more satisfied they declare

the higher percentage of their expectations is fulfilled. An index of 100%


123

indicates extremely demanding graduates, that is, they are not satisfied unless

they get the highest of what was expected.

• Average impact indices: they show the improvement margins on a specific

criterion/subcriterion.

Combining weights and satisfaction indices, a series of ‘‘Performance/Impor-

tance’’ diagrams can be developed (Fig. 2). Each of these diagrams is divided into

quadrants according to performance (high/low), and importance (high/low), that

may be used to classify actions:

• Status quo (low performance and low importance): Generally, no action is

required.

• Leverage opportunity (high performance/high importance): This area includes

the strong points.

• Transfer resources (high performance/low importance): Organization’s

resources may be better used elsewhere.

• Action opportunity (low performance/high importance): These are the criteria/

subcriteria that need attention.

The criteria and subcriteria used in the current study are shown below. Figure 1.

3.2 Sampling method

For the purposes of the study, an electronic questionnaire was developed using a

software tool. As part of the questionnaire development process, a pre-test was

conducted with a small group of students and academics. The goal of this test was to

Fig. 1 Hierarchical diagram of criteria and subcriteria


123

evaluate the clarity, completion time, ease of administration, and data collection process

of the questionnaire. On the basis of the feedback given the questionnaire was

appropriately modified and wording on the questionnaire was revised to increase clarity.

A five-point Likert-type scale was used to assess job satisfaction for all the

criteria and subcriteria. The five response categories were: ‘‘Very Dissatisfied’’,

‘‘Dissatisfied’’, ‘‘Neither Satisfied or Dissatisfied’’, ‘‘Satisfied’’, ‘‘Very Satisfied’’.

The users could easily fill in the questionnaire on their computers and e-mail the

questionnaire once completed. In those cases where the interview was conducted by

phone the questionnaire was completed by the interviewer at the time of the interview.

The study took place between March and April 2008. Personal and contact details

of the graduates were obtained from existing student files.

Due to the lack of computerized databases for all graduates it was impossible to use a

stratified sampling method and instead a random sampling method was employed. A

10% sample was required from the commission authority for each department.

However, in order to secure a representative sample for the requirements of this research

a greater sample size was collected. In total, 195 questionnaires were collected.

The number of graduates from the Business Administration Department was 109,

representing 14.6% of the total number of graduates for the period 1997–2001. The

number of graduates from the Informatics Department was 86, representing 21.1%

of the total number of graduates for the period 1997–2001. Sample size calculations

were carried out (de Vaus 2002) and indicated that, for the population of the

Business Administration Department, the required sample size was 96 while for the

Informatics Department the required sample size was 78 (with a 95% confidence

level) while accepting a margin of error of less than 10%. Hussey and Hussey

(1997) highlight that no survey can ever be considered to be free from error or

provide 100% certainty and error limits of less than 10% and confidence levels of

higher than 90% can be regarded as acceptable.

Several steps were taken in order to reduce non-response bias. Confidentiality was

assured to each participant. Questions about job satisfaction and dissatisfaction and

questions about their relations with superiors were only a small part of a large

questionnaire that included demographic characteristics and personal details, their

qualifications and the education they received, their career and prior/current employ-

ment, and ambitions and future aspirations. Overall, less than 1% of the graduates

contacted declined to participate in the survey resulting in a response rate of 99%.

The total number of graduates that were working at the time was 188. Of these

graduates 174 (94 from the Business Administration Department and 80 from the

Informatics Department) were employed while the rest 14 were self-employed.

4 Analysis and results

4.1 Global satisfaction

Graduates from both departments co-exist within a working environment. Graduates

from the Informatics Department develop and provide support for computer

applications while graduates from the Business Administration Department use the


123

applications. At this point a statistical analysis of the two samples will help in

presenting a clear picture.

The number of males in the two samples was 42% for the Business

Administration Department and 69% for the Informatics Department. These

numbers are in agreement with research about the population of undergraduates

(Koilias 2005). Only 15% of the Business Administration Department graduates

have completed a postgraduate degree while the figure for the Informatics

Department is 31%. The proportion of graduates from the Business Administration

employed in the private sector is 71% while for Informatics it is 32%. The

difference between these figures is attributable to the fact that the rest of the

Informatics graduates (i.e. 68%) were employed in the public sector due to their

recent massive appointment as teachers of this specialization in secondary

education.

Graduates from both departments expressed the same rate of satisfaction with

work linked with the subject of their studies. Informatics graduates in the private

sector earn more money than Business Administration graduates in that sector. At

the same time, job satisfaction due to earning more is greater among Informatics

graduates. There are no significant differences between graduates regarding

earnings in the public sector. However, Informatics graduates in that section appear

to be less satisfied than graduates working in the private sector. Finally,

dissatisfaction of the Business Administration graduates with hours of work

appears to be significantly greater than that of Informatics graduates.

The relative frequencies for each category of the Likert-scale in response to the

questions are shown in Table 2. The results of the MUSA method for the criteria

and subcriteria (weight, satisfaction index, demanding index and impact index) are

also shown.

Overall, graduates are rather satisfied with their jobs. Dissatisfaction is expressed

by only 4% while in general terms 81% are satisfied. Previous research conducted in

Greece has shown that 67.9% of respondents expressed satisfaction with their job,

while only 12.8% of respondents indicated no satisfaction (Kourtidis 2006).

The index of Global satisfaction, using the MUSA method, is 92%. At the same

time the demanding index for the graduates appears to be low (-74%). This is an

interesting result that indicates that graduates are not demanding, that is, graduates

are satisfied despite that only a small percentage of their expectations regarding

their job has been fulfilled.

4.2 Criteria and subcriteria of job satisfaction

The most important criterion is the ‘‘Extrinsic factors’’ that carries a weight of 62%,

with a very high satisfaction index (96%) but also with a low demanding index

(-84%). The response frequencies for this criterion are correlated with the response

frequencies for total satisfaction. These results put the criterion on a high point in

the Leverage opportunity region (see Fig. 2).

The second important criterion is the ‘‘Intrinsic factors’’ criterion that carries a

weight of 22%, that produced twice the number of negative answers while the third


123

Tab

le2

Rel

ativ

efr

equ

enci

eso

fg

rad

uat

es’

resp

on

ses

and

resu

lts

Ver

yd

issa

tisfi

ed

(%)

Dis

sati

sfied

(%)

Nei

ther

sati

sfied

or

Dis

sati

sfied

(%)

Sat

isfi

ed

(%)

Ver

ysa

tisfi

ed

(%)

Wei

gh

tS

atis

fact

ion

Dem

and

ing

Imp

act

Glo

bal

sati

sfac

tio

n0

41

56

61

59

2-

74

Ex

trin

sic

Fac

tors

04

12

66

18

62

96

-8

42

.5

Sal

ary

51

43

53

41

21

46

8-

27

4.3

Wo

rkco

nd

itio

ns

15

15

48

31

31

92

-6

82

.5

Ho

urs

of

wo

rk1

91

52

64

92

79

1-

63

2.4

Ho

lid

ays

46

92

85

41

68

7-

38

2.2

Acc

ess

tow

ork

51

69

21

49

12

77

-1

72

.8

Intr

insi

cfa

cto

rs1

81

95

61

52

28

6-

55

3.1

Inte

rest

ing

35

11

45

36

23

88

-5

42

.8

Per

sonal

gro

wth

62

21

83

32

11

36

8-

25

4.2

Ad

van

cem

ent/

Pro

mo

tio

n

82

31

83

51

61

36

5-

23

4.6

Dec

isio

nm

akin

g4

15

26

39

16

19

78

-4

74

.2

Sec

uri

ty2

51

43

14

93

29

2-

66

2.6

Rel

atio

ns-

soci

alfa

ctors

12

23

55

18

16

82

-3

42

.9

Wo

rkw

ith

oth

ers

13

73

75

21

89

1-

44

1.6

Rel

atio

nto

hig

hle

vel

man

agem

ent

19

11

38

42

25

90

-6

02

.4

So

cial

resp

on

sib

ilit

y2

13

44

41

91

88

2-

44

3.2

So

cial

stat

us

14

22

51

23

39

93

-7

52

.9


123

criterion are the ‘‘Relations-Social factors’’, carrying a weight of 16% and

producing only a few negative answers.

The most significant of the subcriteria of the first criterion is not salary, as one

might expect, but work conditions, which has only 6% negative answers with a

weight of 31% and a satisfaction index of 92%. These results put this subcriterion in

the Leverage opportunity region (see Fig. 3). On the other hand, the amount of

money earned (salary subcriterion), which only 46% of the graduates rated as

‘‘Satisfied’’ or ‘‘Very Satisfied’’, has a small weight (14%) and a low satisfaction

index, while at the same time the demanding index is neutral. However, the impact

index for this subcriterion is high and this implies that a small change on the salary

will strongly affect satisfaction. Of the rest of the subcriteria, hours of work comes

second in the weight index, followed by holidays, while access to work produced a

small satisfaction index and negative answers (21%).

Fig. 2 Criteria action diagram

Fig. 3 Action diagram for subcriteria


123

The most important subcriterion of the second criterion is job security, with only

7% indicating that they are unhappy, with a weight of 32% and a high satisfaction

index. These results put security in the Leverage opportunity region (see Fig. 3). It

is estimated that this result is biased since most of the graduates work in the public

sector.

The second important subcriterion is the interesting subcriterion (23%), followed

by decision making (19%), followed, with the same weight (13%), by the

advancement/promotion subcriterion. It should be pointed out that while advance-

ment/promotion produced the most negative answers in this group of subcriteria

(31%), it also yields the highest impact index.

Dissatisfaction is low for the third criterion. Dissatisfaction for most of the

subcriteria ranges from 3 to 10%, with the highest dissatisfaction in the relation to

high level management subcriterion. The most important subcriterion is social status

of the work, with a weight of 39% and a satisfaction index of 93%. These results put

social status in the Leverage opportunity region of the action diagram (see Fig. 3). It

appears that graduates consider that their work receives high recognition from

society. Finally, graduates considered that their relations with high-level manage-

ment are more valuable than with their colleagues.

4.3 Differences between departments and work sectors

The total sample of 174 persons consisted of graduates from two departments.

Graduates also can be divided into two groups depending on whether they are

employed in the public or the private sector. Therefore each graduate belongs to one

of four subsets depending on the department from which he/she graduated and the

sector in which he/she worked. Job security is widely considered to be a very

important aspect and in the analysis presented above (see Table 2) carries the

second highest weight. For each of the four subsets the same analyses were carried

out in order to study the security of work subcriterion. Fig. 4 shows the position of

this subcriterion in the action diagram for each of the four subsets.

Considerable differences are shown for the four subsets of graduates. Graduates

in the public sector put, as expected, this subcriterion within the Leverage

opportunity region while this is not the case for graduates working in the private

Fig. 4 Action diagram for security subcriterion for the private/public sector (both departments)


123

sector. Graduates from the Informatics Department put this subcriterion in the

Leverage opportunity region (since most of them are working in the public sector).

However, graduates from the Business Administration Department consider this

subcriterion to be of low performance and importance.

In order to form a better picture of the differences between the two departments

with respect to the job sectors, further below, an analysis for each department is

presented for the subcriteria that are widely considered to affect mostly an employee

working in the private or the public sector: salary and security. The same evaluation

could be performed for all subcriteria.

4.3.1 Informatics Department

An analysis for the two subsets of the Informatics Department graduates, one for

graduates working in the public sector and one for graduates working in the private

sector, was performed. Figure 5 shows the position for the security and salary

subcriteria in the action diagram while in Table 3 the relative frequencies of each

department for each subcriterion are shown. The job security subcriterion is placed

high in the Leverage opportunity area while for the graduates employed in the

private sector the subcriterion is just above the horizontal axis. By contrast, salary in

the public sector is in the Leverage opportunity area while for the public sector it is

Fig. 5 Action diagram for security and salary for the public/private sector (Informatics Department)

Table 3 Relative frequencies for each department for the public/private sector

Department Private sector Public sector

Dissatisfied

(%)

Neutral

(%)

Satisfied

(%)

Dissatisfied

(%)

Neutral

(%)

Satisfied

(%)

Satisfaction from security

Business Adm. 14 25 62 4 12 85

Informatics 4 8 88 0 6 94

Satisfaction from salary

Business Adm. 17 30 53 12 48 40

Informatics 8 29 63 28 36 36


123

in the Status-quo area. These results are in accordance with the figures in Table 3.

There are no significant differences between public and private sector for security

while there are large differences for the salary subcriterion for graduates that are

satisfied, neutral or dissatisfied.

4.3.2 Business administration department

For the 94 graduates of the Business Administration Department two subsets were

formed: one for graduates working in the public sector and one for graduates

working in the private sector. Figure 6 shows the position for the security and salary

subcriteria in the action diagram. Security in the public sector is in the Leverage

opportunity area but close to the vertical axis. Salary for the public sector is in the

Action opportunity area, while salary for the private sector is in the Status quo area.

Finally, Business Administration graduates consider security in the private sector as

a factor of low performance and importance. This variation could be also verified by

the figures presented in Table 3: there are difference between public and private

sectors for both subcriteria.

The above results confirm the existing belief that salaries in the public sector are

lower than those in the private sector but that jobs in the public sector, due to being

on a permanent basis, are more secure.

5 Conclusions

Previous research has mainly focused on investigating the satisfaction of employees

of a particular company or organization (Weisman et al. 1980; Vinokur-Kaplan

1990; Islam et al. 2000; Koustelios 2001; Pors and Johannsen 2002). These

employees are of different ages and have different specialization areas; they are

employed in different positions within the hierarchical structure of the company;

they have different professional qualifications; and their salaries vary. Some of the

studies are not placed in any theoretical framework and usually the data analysis

involves only descriptive statistics. The present study did not examine the views of

Fig. 6 Action diagram for security and salary for the public/private sector (Business Adm. Department)


123

persons working for the same company or organization but instead of young people

of the same age and with similar qualifications.

This research employs a new theoretical framework, the theory of work values,

and a multi-criteria quantitative method (MUSA) in order to measure the work

satisfaction of graduates from two of the most popular departments of TEI of

Athens. Only students with high admission scores are accepted in these

departments.

The study indicates that satisfaction from work among the graduates of the

Business Administration Department and the Informatics Department is very high.

This suggests that both departments provide their students with the knowledge and

qualifications necessary to find a satisfactory job as soon as they graduate. Since no

criterion or subcriterion was placed in the Action opportunity area of the action

diagram (see Fig. 2) there is no dimension or factor of job satisfaction in the

existing situation that requires immediate or urgent attention.

According to the weight index, the most important category of factors is the

‘‘Extrinsic factors’’ followed by the ‘‘Intrinsic factors’’ and finally the ‘‘Relations-

Social factors’’. Work conditions, security and social status that are involved in a job

are the subcriteria that carry the highest weight in each of the three categories.

An interesting finding from this research is that graduates are overall satisfied

although it appears that only a small percentage of their expectations has been

fulfilled. This could be attributed to the fact that graduates from TEI consider

themselves to be of lower possibilities in the job market than graduates from

Universities and also to the existing conditions (uncertainty of employment and low

economic growth) of the labour market at the time the survey was conducted.

The demanding index is relatively high for the salary, advancement/promotion

and personal growth subcriteria. This implies that graduates appear to have more

expectations from their work, that is, they anticipate an increase of earned money,

personal growth, and professional promotion within the ranks of hierarchy which

will result in an increased job satisfaction.

The salary, advancement/promotion, personal growth and decision making

subcriteria carry a high impact value. This means that an increase in these

subcriteria will result in considerably increasing their total job satisfaction.

Several differences were found between the graduates of the Business

Administration Department and the Informatics Department, and also between

graduates working in the public vs. the private sector with respect to how they value

earnings and job security.

Graduates from the Informatics Department feel more secure about their job, in

both the public and the private sector, than Business Administration graduates.

This could be probably attributed to two reasons: (a) most of the Informatics

Department graduates (68%) work in the public sector and (b) those that work in the

private sector they may consider themselves to be high skilled and that their

positions are more secure due to the nature of the job that requires persons with

specialized computer knowledge.

For Business Administration graduates security is not important for both the

public and the private sector. Those that work in the public sector feel more secure.

In the private sector this criterion is of low importance and low performance. This


123

could be attributed to the fact that graduates may expect to change several jobs in

their career, since the nature of their job allows them to be placed in a wider range

of positions, and possibly they consider that these job positions could be filled by

persons from different specializations and having a diverse educational background.

In the public sector, Business Administration graduates are more satisfied with

their salary than Informatics graduates and, at the same time, consider this criterion

as very important. On the contrary, in the private sector, Business Administration

graduates do not feel that salary greatly affects their satisfaction and appear to be

less satisfied than Informatics graduates.

There are some limitations in this study. The scope of the study was limited to

graduates from only two departments involving two different educational

programmes. Participants used in the present study comprise a small, although

sufficient, sample of students and the study was based on self-reported answers

which may be subject to social desirability bias.

The MUSA method is typically used to indicate particular improvement actions

for a business organization or a company so that customer satisfaction should be

improved. The criteria action diagram (see Fig. 2) can be used to indicate the strong

and the weak points of graduate satisfaction and suggest the necessary improve-

ments. Grigoroudis and Siskos (2002) point out, satisfaction evaluation problems

may refer to educational systems, expectations and needs of a specific labour

market, shareholders’ or investors’ satisfaction and benchmarking of a business

organization. However, the strong and weak points of the action diagram cannot be

exploited by an educational institute which represents the organization in this study.

In particular, extrinsic factors are located in the leverage opportunity quadrant but

the management of the educational institute cannot directly affect or change any of

these factors. The results could be more valuable to future students when they make

a choice for a particular profession and to current students as an indication of what

to expect when they graduate. Also the results can be used to benchmark a

department or compare departments from several institutions.

Although the MUSA method is employed here to portray a clear picture of the

graduate job satisfaction there are two major implications.

Firstly, the presented results may give a clear view of what happens in the labour

market. For example, as shown in Fig. 2 the graduates give greater importance and

they are more satisfied by the extrinsic factors, which somehow represent the

tangible rewards or conditions an employee finds at work. This result is consistent

with unstable work conditions, deteriorating work rights, precarious employment,

stagnant or declining real wages or even the recent Greece’s economic crisis.

Secondly, the presented results are valuable for the Carrier Office of the

academic institutions, since they may better advice and prepare graduates for their

future employment.

Several directions for future research are suggested by this study. Researchers

can utilise the framework and methodology to investigate job satisfaction of

graduates from other departments. Future research should further investigate not

only departments with high scores, similar to those achieved by the graduates of

departments examined here, but also departments whose graduates may express low

satisfaction. A comparison of departments with extreme satisfaction scores (high


123

and low) should provide useful information and should also help improve academic

educational programmes with low satisfaction scores.

It is expected that more differences will surface between departments that are

highly rated and attract the best of applicants and those departments which come

low in the preference of applicants for admission and therefore students in those

departments tend to be low performing students.

It is also desirable to shed some light on how demographic characteristics such as

gender, grades and social and economic background influence job satisfaction.

Another interesting direction could be to compare graduates from Technological

Institutes with graduates in the same fields from Universities.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her very constructive and

detailed comments and the helpful suggestions on the manuscript.

References

Brown MT (1995) The career development of African Americans: theoretical and empirical issues. In:

Leong FTL (ed) Career development and vocational behaviour of racial and ethnic minorities.

Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp 7–30

de Vaus DA (2002) Surveys in social research. Routledge, London

Elizur D, Borg I, Hunt R, Beck IM (1991) The structure of work values: a cross cultural comparison.

J Organ Behav 12:313–322

Fraze SD (1986) The relationship of participation in selected FFA activities with career choice and job

satisfaction of program completers in vocational agriculture in Texas. Unpublished doctoral

dissertation, Texas A&M University

Ginnzberg E, Ginsburg SW, Axelrad S, Herma JL (1951) Occupational choice: an approach to general

thesory. Columbia University Press, New York

Grigoroudis E, Siskos Y (2000) Quality of services and measurement of customer satisfaction (in Greek).

New Technology Publications, Athens, Greece

Grigoroudis E, Siskos Y (2002) Preference disaggregation for measuring and analysing customer

satisfaction: the MUSA method. Eur J Oper Res 143:148–170

Grilli L, Rampichini C (2007) A multilevel analysis of graduates’ job satisfaction. In: Fabbris L (ed)

Effectiveness of University education in Italy: employability, competences, human capital. Springer

Verlag, Berlin, pp 29–42

Hackman JR, Oldham GR (1975) Development of the job diagnostic survey. J Appl Phycol 60:159–170

Hoppock R, Super DE (1950) Vocational and educational satisfaction. In: Fryer DH, Henry ER (eds)

Handbook of applied psychology. Rinehart, New York, pp 126–134

Hussey J, Hussey R (1997) Business research: a practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate

students. Macmillan Press Ltd, London

Irani T, Scherler C (2002) Job Satisfaction as an outcome measure of the effectiveness of an agricultural

communications academic program. J Agric Educ 43:12–23

Ironson GH, Smith PC, Brannick MT, Gibson WM, Paul KB (1989) Constitution of a job in general scale:

a comparison of global, composite, and specific measures. J Appl Phycol 74(2):193–200

Islam N, Saha GC, Ahmed F (2000) An evaluation of job satisfaction of women employees in commercial

banks of Bangladesh. J Bus Adm 26(3):47–57

Kinnier RT (1995) A re-conceptualization of values clarification: values conflict resolution. J Counc Dev

74:18–24

Koilias C (2005) Evaluating students’ satisfaction: the case of informatics department of TEI Athens.

Oper Res Int J 5(2):363–381

Kourtidis M (2006) How satisfied are the workers in Greece (in Greek). Athens GSM—Nottingham Trent

University

Koustelios A (2001) Personal characteristics and job satisfaction of Greek teachers. Int J Educ Manag

15(7):354–358


123

Marini MM, Fan PL, Finley E, Beutel AM (1996) Gender and job values. Sociol Educ 69(1):9–65

Nevill DD, Super DE (1986) The value scale: theory, application, and research (manual). Consulting

Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA

Politis Y, Siskos Y (2004) Multicriteria methodology for the evaluation of a Greek engineering

department. Eur J Oper Res 156(1):223–240

Pors NO, Johannsen CG (2002) Job satisfaction and motivational strategies among library directors. New

Libr World 103(6):199–209

Pryor RG (1983) Manual for the work aspect preference scale. Australian Council for Educational

Research, Sidney, Australia

Rokeach M (1973) The nature of human values. Free Press, New York

Rokeach M (1977) The nature of human values and value systems. In: Smith M (ed) A practical guide to

value clarification. University Associates, La Jolla, CA, pp 222–245

Ros M, Schwartz SH, Surkiss S (1999) Basic individual values, work values and the meaning of work.

Appl Psychol 48(1):49–71

Salancik GR, Pfeffer J (1977) An examination of need-satisfaction models of job attitudes. Admin Sci Q

22(3):427–456

Siskos Y, Grigoroudis E (2002) Measurement customer satisfaction for various services using

multicriteria analysis. Aiding decisions with multiple criteria. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dutch,

pp 457–482

Siskos Y, Grigoroudis E, Zopounidis C, Saurais O (1998) Measuring customer satisfaction using a

collective preference disaggregation model. J Global Optim 12:175–195

Siskos Y, Politis Y, Kazantzi G (2001) Multicriteria methodology for the evaluation of higher education

systems: the case of an engineering department. Oper Res Int J 1(1):17–41

Spector PE (1997) Job satisfaction: application, assessment. Cause and consequences. Sage Publications,

Thousands Oaks, London

Super DE (1957) The psychology of careers. Harper, New York

Super DE (1981) Approaches to occupational choice and career development. In: Watts AG, Kidd JM

(eds) Career development in Britain. Hobson’s Press, Cambridge, England, pp 135–156

Super DE (1990) A life-span, life-space approach to career development. In: Brown D, Brooks L (eds)

Career choice and development. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp 197–261

Super DE, Sverko B (1995) Life role, values, and careers: international findings of the work importance

study. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

Vinokur-Kaplan D (1990) Job satisfaction among social workers in public and voluntary child welfare

agencies. Child Welfare 70(1):81–91

Weisman CS, Alexander CS, Chase GA (1980) Job satisfaction among hospital nurses: a longitudinal

study. Health Serv Res 15(4):341–364

Weiss DJ, Dawis RV, England GW, Lofquist LH (1967) Manual for the Minnesota satisfaction

questionnaire. Minnesota studies in vocational rehabilitation no 22. University of Minnesota,

Minneapolis

Zytowski DG (1970) Psychological influences on vocational development. Houghton Mifflin, New York


123

Documents

Job satisfaction of higher education graduates