The influence of Organizational Culture, Knowledge Management,

Career Development, and Working Environment to Employee Job Satisfaction

(A Case Study in A Port Services Company)

Wardoyo

A lecturer at the Graduate Programme, University of Muhammadiyah Tangerang

Humairoh

A lecturer at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Muhammadiyah Tangerang

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to describe and analyse theinfluence of human resources variables i.e,organizational culture,knowledge management, career development,and working environment to employee job satisfaction. It was hyphothesizedthatthe organizational culture, knowledge management, career development and working environmenthave positive andsignificant influences individually andsimultanouslyto employee job satisfaction.This study was a causal research to obtain evidences of causal relationships. The samplingtechnique applied was a cluster random sampling method with questionnaires as the instrument to collect data measuredbased on theLikert Summated Rating (LSR) Scale (scores 1 – 4 were used in this study). Employees of PT Krakatau Bandar Samudera (KBS) – a port services company in the Province of Banten, Indonesia were respondents of this research. Respondents consisting of 155 employees were interviewed according to statements in the questionnaires. Thedata processing technique used in this research was a path analysis based on the statistical software of SPSS version 20. Results indicated that organizational culture,knowledge management, career development, and working environment individually and simultanously havepositive and significant influencesto job satisfaction. As such, it is recommended that organizational culture, knowledge management, career development and working environment be a basis in development of human resources management; in other words,they are ‘conditio sine qua non’ variables to employee satisfaction that need initial commitment and attention of the company’s management.

Keywords:career development, job satisfaction, knowledge management, organizational culture, working environment.

  1. INTRODUCTION

1.1.Background of the research

A high competition in the world todays urgescompanies/industries tohave employees with adequate skill and competency.Employees are valuable assets of companies, and they should be managed properly to provide optimal contribution not only to benefit companies, but also to satisfy their employees.Employees whose are not feeling comfortable, appreciated, and able to develop their potential capability, will not focus and concentrate on their works.

Employee job satisfaction has a great share to achieve company’s targets and goals. A high job satisfaction is expected by managers as itwill positively related to results expected by managers. Therefore, a company or organization should seriously pay attention to its employee satisfaction including employee’s expectations and needs in order to achieve its targets and goals. If there is a gap between expectation and actual realization (even it is a very small gap), unsatisfactory of employeesexists.

Many factors influence job satisfaction, among other things are organizational culture, knowledge management, career development, and work environment. Mas’ud (in Meliana, 2012) reported that one indicator of a good organizational culture is a situation where employees feel safe to their works. This feeling will increase job satisfaction and organizationalcommitment of employees. In the same way, Robbins and Judge (2008) stated that organizational culture has a strong relationship to job satisfaction. According toSoedjono (2005), objectives of an organizational culture is to change attitude and behaviour of human resources to enhance their productivity.Aside of organizational culture, knowledge managementhas also relationships to job satisfaction. Knowledge management provides some advantages for the company such as: more efficient in time and cost, improve knowledge assets, capability to adapt and to enhance productivity (Alvin Soleh, 2011).

Furthermore, career development is very important in human resources management inwhich management could enhance productivity, improve employee attitude to their works, and develop higher job satisfacton(Rivai, 2004;Monis dan Sreedhara, 2003; Bola, 2011). Handoko (in Sunyoto, 2013)stated that starting point of career development begun from employees themselves. Everybody is responsible for their career development or progress. Training is one of indicators of career development (Rivai, 2009).Training by companies will improve and enhance job satisfaction.In addition, accordingto Artoyo (inSariyathi, 2007) it is important for management to pay attention to a work environment in an organization as a work environment has a direct influence to working empoyees. Work environment that meets employee expectations will enhance their performances, in reverse, a work environment that does not satisfy employees will decrease their performances.

Theinfluences of all those variables previuosly described to job satisfaction, werestudied in this researchwith a port services company - PT. Krakatau Bandar Samudera (PT KBS) in Cilegon – Banten, Indonesia as a location of the research.

1.2.Formulation of the problems and research objectives

Based on the background previuosly described, problems of the research were formulated as follows:

  1. What is the influenceof organizational cultureto employee job satisfaction?
  2. What is the influenceofknowledge managementto employee job satisfaction?
  3. What is the influenceofcareer development to employee job satisfaction?
  4. What is the influenceof working environment to employee job satisfaction?
  5. What is the simultanous influenceof organizational culture, knowledge management, career development, and working environment to employee job satisfaction?

Objectives of the research were:

a.to explain and analysis the influences of organizational culture to employee job satisfaction,

b.to explain and analysis the influences of knowledge management to employee job satisfaction,

c.to explain and analysis the influences of career development to employee job satisfaction,

d.to explain and analysis the influences of working environment and employee job satisfaction,

e.to explain and analysis the simultanous influences of organizational culture, knowledge management, career development, and working environment to employee job satisfaction.

  1. Literature Reviews

2.1.Employee Job Satisfaction

Every person individually has a different level of job satisfaction depending on the value system of each person. This may be caused the way of each individual person to view works differently. A person with a high level of job satisfaction would have a positive attitude to her/his works; on the othe hand, a person who unsatisfies to her/his works would have a negative attitude to her/his works (Robbin, 2007). In general, job satisfaction is the fulfillment of people needs in line with values they followed (Lestari and Bachtiar, 2007). It may be concluded that job satisfaction is a feeling of employeesthat contribute or not contributeto work or condition of employees.The feeling related to works involved many aspects such as effort, opportunity in career development, relationship with other employees, job placement, and organizational structure. The feeling related to employeesthemselves among other things are age, health, capability and education. According to Jewell and Siegall (1998), job satisfaction may be measured from several aspects:(1)psychological aspect: related to passion, attitude, talent, skill; (2) social aspect: social inter-action among employees, as well as inter-action with their superiors; (3) physical aspect: related to physical condition of work environment, and physical condition of employees; and (4) financial aspect: related to employee welfares such as salary, fringe & benefit, social guarantee, and facility.

2.2.Organizational Culture

In general each organization hasa specific organizational culture. An organizational culture is a basic pattern of common assumptions, values, and beliefs considered as the right ways to think and act to possible problems faced by an organization. An organizational culture defines what is important and unimportant for a company. It is a meaningful system formedtogether by its community to differentiate with other organizations (Robbins, 2007).

Smith (2004) stated that organizational culture is general things conducted in the frame work of organizational member ideas/thinking, that contain basic assumptions and values delivered to new members as a way to see, think, feel, behave and expect other people to behave in an organization. Values and beliefs of an organization raise a series of management implementation, as activities based on organizational values. The activity was supported by dominant organizational values and beliefs. According to Denison, Haaland, and Goelzer(2002), organizational culture has four dimensions: (1) involvement – how far participations of employees in decision making, (2) consistency – how far the commitments of employees to basic assumptions and values of an organization, (3) adaptability – the capability of organization to respond to external environment changes by changing internal organization, and (4) mission – main objectives that members of an organization believe and confirm what are important in the objectives of an organization.PT Krakatau Bandar Samudera/KBShas basic principles oforganizational culture called ICIRI (Intact Sincerety – religious dimension, always pray before doing works; Competence – improve skill, knowledge and attitude;Integrity – discipline, honest, keep promise; Reliability – commit to achieve the best performance ,and Innovative – in search for new ideas, new methods to enhance productivity and performance).

2.3. Knowledge Management

Knowledge management may be classified in two aspects: operational, and strategic. Knowledge managementin operational aspect means as activities of the company or organization where there is development and utilization of knowledge; whereas in strategic aspect knowledge management means steps to enhance organization or company based on knowledge. Knowledge management as a formatted and directed process in digesting information owned by a company and searching for individual needs in the company and to provide facilities that information are always available and accessable if needed (Sembel & Santoso, 2002). In other words, knowledge managementis a process to search, get,store and distribute knowledge (experties, skills, experiences, and networks) owned by employee individually of an organization to organization or individual person in an organization (Laudon dan Laudon, 2002;Bateman and Snell, 2008)).Knowledge managementindicators are: (1)knowledge identification–use and illustrate knowledge environment in a company, (2) knowledge acquisition –obtain into a company derived knowledge by getting in most important part of the knowledge from outside sources, (3)knowledge sharing – develop an organization those are concerns to knowledge sharing, and(4)knowledge utilization–knowledge available in an organization are implemented productively to benefit the organization (Alvin Soleh, 2011).

2.4. Career Development

According to Sudiro (2011), career development is a process of job capacity enhancement by individual employee in the framework of achieving her/his expected career. Martoyo (2007) stated that career development is a condition showing the improvement of position of a person in an organization in a career path as decided in its organization. In the same way, Nugroho dan Kunartinah (2012) stated that career development is a process of improvement for individual job capacity to achieve career expected.

Mangkunegara (2011) reported that career development helped to achieve individual objectives in an organization. It showed financial benefits of individual employee, helped employee knowing his potential, strengthened employee and organization relationships, showed social responsibility, decreased turn over and personnel costs, as well as, managerial and professional costs.

Furthermore, Nugroho and Kunartinah (2012) explained that career development helped employee to be promoted, turn overdecreased, employee potentialrevealed, growthsupported, employee needssatisfied, and implementation of activities as planned. In short, career development is a continuos process to achieve career as expected in the career planing of an organization. In this research, career development indicators were: (i) information and program career: provide information on career available and possible position can be achieved by employee; (ii) opportunity for training and development: opportunity for training to improve ability & skill of employees; (iii) career diversity: positions in the organization are diversed allowing to place employees matching to their skill & capability; (iii) career responsibility: give employees responsibility to do their works, and (iii) realistic career development: evaluate the works of employeesobjectively for their career development.

2.5. Working Environment

A working environment is a place where employees are doing their activies everyday. A conducive working environment is a working place where employeesfeelsafe and secure, so that they could workcomfortably and optimally. A working environment influences employee emotion. If employees enjoy where they are working then they will have a feelling of comfortable in their work place, doing good works, and using their time to work effectively. Sedarmayanti (2011) stated that a working environment was all tools and materials, environment around where employees work, method of works, and work regulationsfor a person or a group. Nitisemito (2011) stated that working environment is all things around the workers that influence themselves in doing their tasks. In general, a working environment is a condition and situation where employees are able to carry out their tasks and works optimally.

  1. Theconceptual modeland hypothesis
  2. The conceptual model of this research

The conceptual model of this research showing relationships among variables previously described: relationships between organizational culture, knowledge management, career development, and working environment to job satisfaction are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The conceptual model of this research

3.2.The hypotheses

  • Organizational culture and job satisfaction

Factors importants leading to job satisfaction are: works that give opportunity to use skills, feedbacks on how good they works and, how working condition of employees either from privacy aspect or easiness to do jobs related to regulation and standard of the company; regulations and standards may come from organizational culture of the company (Robbin, 2002). If employee perception to an organizational culture is good then employees may have feeling of satisfaction to their works. On the other hand, if employee perception to an organizational culture is not good, then employees tend to unsatisfatory to their works(Robbins and Judge, 2008). Research shows that there is a relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction (Ratnawati & Taulisa, 2012; Tumbelaka, Alhabsji & Nimran, 2016; and Wibowo & Putra, 2016). In this research, therefore, it is hypothesized:

H1 :There is a positive and significant influence between organizational culture and employee job satisfaction at PT KBS – a port services company in Cilegon Banten, Indonesia.

  • Knowledge Management and job satisfaction

Availability of conducive learning environment is essential for knowledge management, so that employees are motivated to learn, to use information and/or knowledge provided by organization and to develop knowledge in an organization (Tjakraatmadja, 2006). An organization or company that considers knowledge as its prime assets, then it is very important to study job satisfaction because job satisfaction has a direct impact to productive behavior of employees. Rismawati (2012), and Prabowo (2014) research supported the relationships between knowledge management and job satisfaction. This research hypothesized that:

H2 : There is a positive and significant influence between knowledge management and employee job satisfactionat PT KBS – a port services company in Cilegon Banten, Indonesia.

  • Career development and job satisfaction

Employees view career development as a factor that gives opportunity to achieve a success in their works, this is a positive perception, otherwise it is a negative perception.This perception influences their job satisfaction; employees will work and satisfy with their job if they have positions in line with their passions, capabilities, and needs. And, career development plays an important role in the company as people do their works not only to obtain what they need today, but they also need changes as their needs change. Parimita, Wahda & Handaru (2015) research shows that career development has a positive and significant influence to job satisfaction for the Post Office employees in Bekasi. In the same way,Bola (2011) shows that relationships between career development and job satisfaction has a positive direction. In this case, therefore, it is hypothesized that:

H3 :There is a positive and significant influence between career development and job satisfactionat PT KBS – a port services company in Cilegon Banten, Indonesia.

  • Working environment and job satisfaction

Management should provide working environment that are comfortable, and good condition because such an environment influences employee behaviour, and management control (Artoyo, and Nitisemito in Sariyathi, 2007). Prastowo (2015) stated that there is a positive influence of working environment to job satisfaction, so if a working environment improves, job satisfaction will improve as well. In this case, the hypothesis of this relationships in this research was:

H4 :There is a positive and significant influence between working environment and job satisfaction at PT KBS – a port services company in Cilegon Banten, Indonesia.

  • Organizational culture, knowledge management, career development, and working environment to job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is employees attitude to their works in relation to cooperation with other employees, compensation they received, and other things related to physical and psychological factors (Sutrisno, 2012). Employee job satisfaction may be reflected in their moral attitude, discipline, and working achievement (Hasibuan, 2007). Therefore, it can be hypothesized simultanous relationships among variables previously mentioned as follows:

H5: there is a simulatanous relationship between organizational culture, knowledge management, career development and working environment to job satisfaction at PT KBS – a port services company in Cilegon Banten, Indonesia.

  1. Research Methodology

Data collection and sample size

The questionnaire was the research instrument to collect data. Questionnaires consist of a list of openned and closed questions or statements (positive and negative) related to indicators of each variable.Respondents answer by choosing attributes in the Likert scale of 1 to 4 (1: very unsatisfactory; 2: unsatisfactory; 3: satisfactory, and 4: very satisfactory). Data collection was carried out in two ways: (i) respondents answered the questionnaires, and (ii) Focus Group Discussion (FGD) – interviewed and discussed with respondents in relation to variables of the research. Questionnaires were distributed to respondents selected as the sample of this research. Total employees of PT KBS was 279 persons, and 155 persons were selected as a sample of this research based on the cluster random sampling technique. Data were collected on 28 November– 09 December 2016.

Data processing and analysis

A statistical package program SPSS version 20 was used to process and analysis the data.

Tests of validity and reliability to questionnaires of this research were carried out before data processing. Interpretation and analysis of data were conducted as follows:

a.Descriptive Analysis

In this method, data were interpreted to illustrate respondent characteristics and problems associated with them.