دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کار، عوامل شخصی و فرهنگی در مدیریت مهندسان و رضایت شغلی آنها - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Managing engineering professionals is critical if organizations wish to retain talented employees. Enhancing engineers’ career satisfaction through work, personal and cultural conditions is a fundamental tool to address their aspirations and increasing performance. This empirical research examines all this with data from 846 Spanish engineers. With a hierarchical regression analysis, the results show that organizational commitment, level of income, suitability for the job, and work-life balance supporting culture improve engineers’ career satisfaction. Organizational commitment is the most important issue. Level of income and suitability for the job are the second most important factors for determining men’s and women’s career satisfaction.

Limitations and future research

As in all research works, this study also has its limitations. Generalizations to the entire population of engineers may not be appropriate because the results focus on Spanish engineers’ perceptions. Other variables may be considered, such as engineers’ key personality traits (Williamson et al., 2013), the existence and type of career paths in the company, the family work conflict (how employees’ personal and family role affects their work role), employee productivity, performance or well-being. This study is not longitudinal, which does not allow career satisfaction to be studied at different points during an engineer’s career. The results may also be analyzed with a structural equation model, which considers the possible interrelationships among the included variables, such as WFC, the WLB supporting culture and organizational commitment, among others. Therefore, previous results and considerations justify more research to be conducted among engineers and other highly skilled workers in Spain, and also from other countries, to generalize the findings about their career satisfaction. Furthermore, future research should also examine relationships between employees’ career paths, career satisfaction and job performance, as well as their influence on business results by considering current aspects that affect the HRM of engineers (cultural change, worldwide economic development, extensive global communication, rapid new technology transfer, individual and organizational talent, flattening corporate hierarchies, among others). Organizations should be responsive to their workforce’s career satisfaction and attempt to match the career development needs of the workforce and their career paths. Career satisfaction is key for retaining the most talented and qualified professionals (Barnett et al., 2005), who may provide better innovations, projects and business results for companies in a changing environment. Companies need to provide a balance between employees’ professional and personal lives (Igbaria et al., 1999) and know their current influence on career satisfaction due to a change in employees’ priorities and the (national, sectorial and organizational) culture.