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Job Satisfaction and Salary: An Illustration from Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

K. N. Bame
K. N. Bame*
Affiliation:
Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
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Extract

The literature on job satisfaction and work attitudes clearly shows that salary or money is one undisputed source of people's motivation to work. They work in anticipation for money which they get to exchange for most of their needs. Salary as a source of workers' dissatisfaction has teen revealed in several studies. Studies conducted in British factories (Marriott and Denerley 1955) and those carried out in the United States—one based on a national sample (Center and Cantril 1946) and another, a follow-up study of gifted children by Terman and Oden (1959)—all show that the income level and job satisfaction of workers are positively related. Reiner (1957) found that inadequate salary was one of the factors which made the teachers he studied leave the teaching profession. Research by Rudd and Wiseman (1962) on some 432 teachers from the University of Manchester School of Education revealed similar findings. Phipp's study (1968) of Ugandan teachers and Nelson's (1970) of Congolese teachers also revealed that salary was one of the dissatisfying factors indicated by the teachers.

Another facet of the role of money in the motivation of workers has been explored by Herzberg and his colleagues (1959). From the findings of their study, they have formulated their motivation-hygiene theory in which, using an analogy from medical field, they call those factors which they claim cause the dissatisfaction of workers—dissatisfiers—the hygiene factors.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , April 1974 , pp. 151 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974

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References

REFERENCES CITED

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