The TQM Journal

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the relationship between job satisfaction and national culture. Many studies have reported differences in job satisfaction between countries but none has included national culture as a mediating variable. The paper seeks to attempt to do exactly that by relating data from the European Employee Index™ to Hofstede's national scores on five dimensions of national culture.

Design/methodology/approach – The analysis covers 22 nations with a job satisfaction sample size of more than 25,000 respondents. The satisfaction data are subsequently related to Hofstede's national scores on five dimensions of national culture.

Findings – The analysis demonstrates that national culture does influence the result of job satisfaction studies.

Research limitations/implications – It is important to note that the managerial implications of these findings are limited to some extent. A multinational company conducting job satisfaction studies in different national settings cannot influence the scores on the cultural dimensions. There are no managerial actions that can be taken to eliminate the influence that national culture has on a job satisfaction study.

Practical implications – The managerial consequences are that it is virtually meaningless to compare the results from a cross-national job satisfaction study without considering the impact that national culture has on the results. It would be much better to follow Deming's advice on performance appraisal. According to this organizational units from different cultures should be evaluated in relation to their ability to improve job satisfaction instead of being compared without taking national culture into account.

Originality/value – The paper gives a theoretical explanation for the influence that national culture has on national job satisfaction levels as well as on other evaluations of job-related aspects and confirms the theoretical considerations through empirical analyses.