Daniel Hale
Dr Adrian Bailey
Dr Megan Blake (University of Sheffield)
October 2004 - September 2007
White Rose Consortium Studentship
Job satisfaction is increasingly important to employees, employers and Government. It has been linked to, among other things, firm productivity, employee turnover and recruitment, long-term sick leave, work-related stress, and absenteeism. The estimated cost of the latter three in 2003 was £26.4bn. As a consequence, the topic has elicited a considerable amount of interest. Traditionally, job satisfaction has been conceptualised as an outcome of factors encompassed by the workplace. I seek to broaden the understanding of the topic by investigating the effect of wider contexts. This involves researching two competing hypotheses: firstly, the role of the contemporary economic landscape of the risk society, and secondly, that of cultural influences informing the emphasis workers place on home and work.