Abstract:
This study sought to apply exchange-based models of job satisfaction and organizational commitment developed for industrialized economies to a developing country by testing for differential effects of job rewards on satisfaction and commitment for male and female agricultural technicians in Kenya. Four categories of rewards, namely, intrinsic, organizational extrinsic, convenience extrinsic, and social extrinsic rewards, were analyzed. The analysis commenced with an assessment of gender differences in workplace experiences and in the levels of satisfaction and commitment. This was necessary because the basis for the differential effects of rewards is the existence of equal or higher levels of satisfaction and commitment for women, relative to men, in the presence of dissimilar workplace experiences (with women having inferior experiences);Using t-tests, gender mean differences in job rewards and in satisfaction and commitment were examined. Women were found to have inferior workplace experiences and to be significantly lower in satisfaction than men. No differences were found for commitment. It was speculated that women's lower level in satisfaction was due to women comparing themselves to men, the absence of legal legislation to protect women, and women's inflated expectations due to the gains they have made in education. The lack of differences in commitment was viewed in terms of the limited chances for cross-sectoral mobility and the increasing numbers of women who are breadwinners;Regression analysis was used to assess the differential effects of rewards and to construct separate models for males and females utilizing only rewards that were significant in the subsequent step. The results demonstrated that the exchange-based models of satisfaction and commitment can be applied successfully to a developing economy. Variables from the four categories of rewards had significant effects for both men and women. Overall, the rewards operated similarly to influence satisfaction for men and women. Their effects on commitment, however, appeared to vary by gender. The separate models explained about 60.5% and 53.4% of the variance in satisfaction for males and females, respectively. For commitment, the explained variances were 59.7% for males and 65.7% for females.
