Psychology, 2010, 1, 295-299
doi:10.4236/psych.2010.14038 Published Online October 2010 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych)
295
Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment
among Employees in the Sultanate of Oman
Syed Mohammad Azeem
Department of Management Information Systems, Yanbu University College, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.
Received August 9th, 2010; revised August 21st, 2010; accepted August 26th, 2010.
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the nature of relationships of demographic factors (age and job tenure) and job satisfaction
facets with organizational commitment. The study also sought to determine the impact of demographic factors and job
satisfaction facets on organizational commitment. A sample consists of 128 employees from service industry selected
randomly. Employees were given a Job Descriptive Index (JDI) questionnaire and the Organizational Commitment
questionnaire (OCQ). Pearson’s produ ct moment correlation coefficient a nd multiple regression analyses were used to
analyze the data. The Results of the study show that the mean values of job satisfaction and organiza tional commitment
are at moderate side. A moderate significant positive relationship was found among job satisfaction facets, demo-
graphic factors, and organizational commitment. Supervision, pay, overall job satisfaction, age, and job tenure were
the significant predictors of organizational commitment.
Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Correlation, Oman
1. Introduction
Organizational commitment and job satisfaction are job
related attitudes that have received considerable attentio n
from researchers around the globe. This is because com-
mitted and satisfied employees are normally high per-
formers that contribute towards organizational produ ctiv-
ity [1-3].
There are not much research efforts taken to explore
attitudinal and behavioral aspects in the Sultanate of
Oman. This study initiates an attempt to address this is-
sue. This study is intended to examine the level of job
satisfaction and organizational commitment among em-
ployees in the selected organizations in Muscat, Oman.
The success of an organization and the pursuit of qual-
ity depend not only on how the organization makes the
most of human competencies, but also on how it stimu-
lates commitment to an organization [4,5]. Commitment
has been related to valuable outcomes for both employ-
ees and employers. Greater commitment can result in
enhanced feelings of belonging, security, efficacy, greater
career advancement, increased compensation and in-
creased intrinsic rewards for the individual [6]. For the
organization, the rewards of commitment can mean in-
creased employee tenure, limited turnover, reduced train-
ing costs, greater job satisfaction, acceptance of organi-
zation’s demands, and the meeting of organizational
goals such as high quality [7].
Different authors depending on their backgrounds
have defined and measured organizational commitment
differently. According to organizational commitment can
be defined as an employee’s level of identification and
involvement in the organization [8]. For Meyer and Al-
lens organizational commitment is a psychological state
that characterizes the employee’s relationship with the
organization with its implications for the decision to con-
tinue membership in the organization [9]. Mowday et al.
defined organizational commitment as a strong belief in
an organization’s goals, and values, a willingness to exert
considerable effort on behalf of an organization and a
strong desire to remain a member of the organization [7].
Demographic factors such as age, gender, marital
status, education level and work experience have found
to be significantly related to organizational commitment
[10-13]. However, Salami found that age and job tenure
are significant predictors of organizational commitment
[14].
Luthans [15] defined job satisfaction as a pleasurable
or positive emotion al state resulting from the appraisal of
one’s job or job experience. It is a result of employee’s
perception of how well their job provides those things

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment among Employees in the Sultanate of Oman
296
that are viewed as important. Evan [16] defined job sat-
isfaction as a state of mind encompassing all those feel-
ings determined by the extent to which the individual
perceives his/her job-related needs to be being met.
Mowday et al. [7] defined job satisfaction as the relative
strength of an individual’s identification with and in-
volvement in a particular organization.
It is evident that there are numerous definitions of the
construct “organizatio nal commitment”. For th e purposes
of this study, it is the definition of Mowday et al. [7] that
will be used.
Several researchers have reported mixed findings on
the relationship between job satisfaction and organiza-
tional commitment. For instan ce, Curr y, W akef ield, Price
and Mueller [17] found no significant relationship be-
tween the two. However, other researchers [11,14,18-21].
Many studies use different facets of job satisfaction to
predict organizational commitment [22-24].
2. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation-
ship between job satisfaction facets and demographic
variables (age and job tenure) with organizational com-
mitment and the extent these variables can be the deter-
minant of organizational commitment among employees
selected in the sample.
2.1. Hypotheses
Based on the literature discussed this study attempted to
answer the following questions:
1) There will be positive and significant relationship
between Job satisfaction facets and organizational com-
mitment.
2) Demographic variables (age and job Tenure) and
job satisfaction facets will significantly predict organiza-
tional commitment of the employees in the sample.
3. Method
3.1. Participants
A sample of 128 employees was randomly selected from
5 service organizations in Muscat.
3.2. Measures
Biographical Information Sheet: The biographical data
information sheet was used to collect information on the
participants’ age and job tenure.
Job Satisfaction: Job satisfaction was measured with
the aid of Job Descriptive Index (JDI), developed by
Smith et al. [2]. The JDI has probably been the most
popular facet scale among organizational researchers and
attempts to study employee reactions to several aspects
or facets of the job.
These include:
 Nature and content of the job;
 Pay;
 Supervision;
 Promotion opportunities;
 Relationships with co-w or ker s .
The entire scale consists of 72 items. Each subscale is
described by 18 evaluative adjectives, which is descrip-
tive of the job, except compensation and opportunities
for advancement, which consists of 9 items each. Both
favorable or positively worded and unfavorable or nega-
tively worded items are provided. Respondents are re-
quired to consider each of the items and decide whether it
is applicable to them or not. The respondents mark “Y” if
the item is appl icable, “N” if it is no t applicable and “? ” if
they are uncertain. Each dimension’s score is calculated by
weighting the positive items as Y = 3, ? = 2 and N = 1
and the negative items as Y = 1, ? = 2 and N = 3.
Organizational Commitment: The Most commonly
used instrument to measure organizational commitment,
is the organizational commitment questionnaire (OCQ)
developed by Mowday et al. [7]. The OCQ is a l5-state-
ment instrument, which uses a 7-point scale from “st rongly
disagree” to “strongly agree”. Statements are directed at
the 3 elements of a strong belief and acceptance of the
organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert
considerable effort and a strong desire to maintain mem-
bership. Nine (9) of the statements are positively worded
and six are negatively worded and reverse scored to re-
duce response bias [7]. The results are summed and di-
vided by 15 to produce a summary indicator of organiza-
tional commitment.
3.3. Procedure
Two self-administered questionnaires were personally
distributed randomly to the respondents with a covering
letter, detailing the nature of the study and assurances of
confidentiality. Detailed instructions were provided to
respondents on how questionnaires were to be co mpleted
and returned.
4. Results
The statistical methods used to test the research hy-
potheses include mean, standard deviation, product mo-
ment correlation coefficients, and regression analysis.
Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1 to de-
scribe the profile and salient characteristics of the sample
in relation to the variables included in the stud y.
With respect to the dimensions of job satisfaction as-
sessed by the JDI for respondents, Table 1 indicates that
the arithmetic means for the nature of the work, supervi-
sion and co-worker subscales are 42.24, 44.19 and 41.83

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment among Employees in the Sultanate of Oman
297
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the dimensions of job sat-
isfaction and organizational commitment.
Variable Mean S.D. MinMax
Organizational Commitment 77.73 16.16 37 105
Work Sub Scale 42.24 6.4 29 52
Supervision Subscale 44.19 7.85 18 54
Co-workers Sub S ca l e 41.83 9.1 24 58
Promotion Sub Scale 20.9 7.8 11 27
Pay Sub Scale 19.17 4.8 9 27
Overall Job Satisfaction 213.20 30.86 136262
respectively. An approximate mean of 36 constitutes an
average level of satisfaction on these subscales. It there-
fore appears that employees in the sample are relatively
satisfied with the nature of the work that they perform,
with their coworkers and satisfied with the supervision
they receive.
Means of 20.9 and 19.17 were obtained for the promo-
tion and pay subscales respectively. Average levels of
satisfaction on these subscales are represented by an ap-
proximate mean score of 18. It would thus appear that
employees in the sample are relatively satisfied with their
promotion opportunities and the pay they receive.
Furthermore, Table 1 indicates that the arithmetic
mean and standard deviation for the organizational com-
mitment of the sample are 77.73 and 16.16 respectively.
As a mean score of approximately 60 would constitu te an
average level of organizational commitment, it may be
concluded that employees in the sample demonstrate
high levels of organizational commitment as assessed by
the OCQ, although the standard deviation is sligh tly high
which shows that the scores are not distributed very
closely to the mean.
The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coeffi-
cient was computed for the purposes of determining the
following relationships:
Table 2. Correlation between Job satisfaction facets and
demographic variables with organizational commitment.
S.No. Variables Organizational Commitment
1 Work Sub Scale 0.458**
2 Supervision Subscale 0.487**
3 Co-workers Sub S c al e 0.393**
4 Promotion Sub Scale 0.366**
5 Pay Sub Scale 0.211*
6 Overall Job Satisfaction 0.560**
7 Age 0.28*
8 Job Tenure 0.26*
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2 tailed); *Correlation is
significant at the 0.05 level (2 tailed)
Results from Table 2 revealed that there are positive
relationships between job satisfaction facets and organ-
izational commitment. The results indicated support for
the first hypothesis as all the facets of job satisfaction are
significantly related with organizational commitment at
0.01 and 0.05 level. There was a weak positive relation-
ship between age and organizational commitment (r =
0.28, p < 0.05). Similarly a positive relationship was
found between job tenure and organizational commit-
ment (r = 0.26 , p < 0.05).
The coefficient correlation of job satisfaction facets
and overall job satisfaction were 0.45, 0.48, 0.39, 0.36,
0.21 and 0.56 respectively. This indicates that the stre ng th
of the relationship was moderate and subs tantial. The low
relationships were found with co-workers (r = 0.39), pro-
motion (r = 0.36), and pay (r = 0.21).
There is a statistically significant positive relationship
between job satisfaction and organizational commitment
(r = 0.56; p = 0.00) for the sample. This would seem to
imply that if the job satisfaction were to change, then
organizational commitment would change accordingly.
The coefficient of determination, (r2 = 0.31), implies that
31% of the variation in organizational commitment of the
sample can be attributed to job satisfaction. The remain-
ing 69% can be explained by other variables. The corre-
lation shows that high level of organizational commit-
ment is not just because of high job satisfaction level but
some other strong variables are there for this. The results
confirm the first hypothesis.
The second hypothesis as to determine whether demo-
graphical variables (age and Job tenure) and each of the
job satisfaction facets are the significant determinants of
organizational commitment, stepwise regression analysis
was carried out.
Results from the Table 3 indicate that only overall job
satisfaction, supervision, and pay (adjusted R = 0.37, F =
11.98, P < 0.05) have contributed toward the R2 value.
Based on the R square value of 0.371, these facets of job
satisfaction could explain 37.1% in the variation of em-
ployees’ organizational commitment. Demographic vari-
ables (age and job tenure) used in the study are predicting
organizational commitment (adjusted R = 0.03, F = 3.2).
5. Conclusions
The results from the study indicated that age and job ten-
ure significantly predicted organizational commitment.
These results are consistent with previous studies that
older workers have more commitment to their organiza-
tions than the younger ones [10]. Age and job tenure
were found significant predictors of organizational com-
mitment may be because the longer the employees stay
with an organization the more time they have to under-
stand the organization and th eir relationship with it.

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment among Employees in the Sultanate of Oman
298
Table 3. Regression analysis of Job satisfaction facets and demographic variables with organizational commitment.
Variables R R2 Adjusted R F B df t
Step 1
Overall JS
Supervision
Work
Promotion
Pay
Co-workers
0.60 0.37 0.34 11.98
0.31
0.23
0.16
0.04
0.20
0.01
(6,121)
2.92*
2.52*
1.58
0.452
2.39*
0.103
Step 2
Age
Job Tenure
0.18 0.04 0.03 3.2 0.21
0.29 (2,125) 5.50* 6.30*
* P < 0.05
Job satisfaction and some of its facets are found as sig-
nificant predictors of organizational commitment. These
finding are supported by earlier researcher who found
that job satisfaction was a significant predictor of organ-
izational commitment [11,18-24]. Second hypothesis has
also been confirmed through the results
6. Implications and Limitations of the
Findings
This study has contributed to the existing theory of or-
ganizational behavior and is useful for research purpose.
The findings are also very informative in explaining and
solving problems related to behavioral aspects of organi-
zations particularly factors that contribute towards or-
ganizational commitment among employees.
Findings of the study suggest that organizations should
consider some factors that have been identified to have
strong impact on organizational commitment and incor-
porate them in employees’ development programs to
improve their attitude in the workplace. Furthermore, the
findings of this study can be of great help in designing
polices for im pro vi n g or ganizational com mitment.
It is the initial stage of behavioral research in the area.
In future an in dep th study is required to be conducted to
identify other factors which contribute to organizational
commitment.
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