Analysis of factors affecting job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies in China

Abstract

With China join into the WTO for over 10 years, increasing number of foreign investors, including foreign invested construction companies, show their interests in the Chinese market. Due to the cultural differences between foreign and local companies, the foreign investors will face many challenges when entering into Chinese market. These challenges may lead to difficulties not only in establishing relationships with government, customers, and suppliers but also in managing local employees. Employees’ job satisfaction is proven to be an important predictor to organizational performance. With more and more Chinese people working in foreign invested construction companies, it is not clear whether they feel live up to their expectations. Limited literature is found about people’s job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies. There is a research gap as the factors affecting Chinese employees’ job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies are not examined.

Based on literature review and exploration, 9 hypotheses are proposed for this research. The first hypothesis is to evaluate people’s overall job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies. The remaining 8 hypotheses are used to investigate the specific factors affecting job satisfaction. A quantitative approach is adopted and a questionnaire survey is conducted for data collection. Data in both local and foreign invested construction companies are collected for comparison purpose. Afterwards, three experienced managers are interviewed to seek their opinions on the findings.

Multiple regression analysis is applied for hypotheses testing. The data analysis results confirm the first hypothesis that employees working in foreign invested construction companies have a lower job satisfaction compared to employees working in local construction companies. The results also show that performance appraisal system, monthly income, feel of responsibility and career prospect are significant factors affecting people’s job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies.

This study portrays a whole picture of employees’ job satisfaction in foreign invested construction companies and several significant predictors are identified. According to the findings, suggestions and implications are provided to managers in foreign construction companies to enhance their employee’s job satisfaction.