Comparing motivating work characteristics, job satisfaction, and turnover intention of knowledge workers and blue-collar workers, and testing a structural model of the variables' relationships in China and Japan

Abstract

This research examines motivating work characteristics, job satisfaction, and turnover intention of knowledge workers and blue-collar workers in China and Japan. The differences in these three variables were, respectively, compared between knowledge workers and blue-collar workers in China and Japan. A structural model of the relationships among the three variables was particularly proposed and investigated. Based on data from an international survey, the characteristics of knowledge workers were first compared with those of blue-collar workers in the same country, and then compared with those of knowledge workers in the other country. Finally, the structural model of the three variables' relationships was examined using a multi-sample analysis of the LISREL method across the countries. There were many significant differences found between knowledge workers and blue-collar workers and between China and Japan. As fundamentally predicted, knowledge workers were found to have higher motivating work characteristics than blue-collar workers in each country. More importantly, a similar structural model of the relationships among the variables was found across the countries.

Keywords:

• blue-collar workers
• job satisfaction
• knowledge workers
• motivating work characteristics
• turnover intention

Notes

1. An international research project proposed by the Denki Rengo Research Group of Japan (Phase III, 1999–2001), which was set up through the Japan Electric, Electronic and Information Union. The research was intended to study quality of working and labor relations of business organizations in the electric and electronics industries across countries, which included surveys on job characteristics, job satisfaction, and turnover. This author is a member of the Taiwanese research team that is one of the partners of countries of the international research group.