companies in Bangladesh. The garment industry is the fast growing export sector of. Bangladesh. More than three fourths of total foreign earnings of the country ...
THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE ON JOB SATISFACTION OF WOMEN GARMENT WORKERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY Dr Nazrul Islam t This study deals with the job satisfaction of women workers and managerial policies of garment companies in Bangladesh. The garment industry is the fast growing export sector of Bangladesh. More than three fourths of total foreign earnings of the country come from this sector. This sector has a low labor cost advantage in producing garments. The manufacturing technology of garment production has been changing from labor-intensive to more sophisticated and capital-intensive production. This change creates dissatisfaction for the lower skilled workers because of their inability to adapt to the new manufacturing process. Work dissatisfaction reduces the performance of workers and, in turn, company performance is negatively affected. Hence, the strategies related to the use of sophisticated technology and to manage human resources for the production of garments for the international markets are crucial. Therefore, this study evaluates the impact of technological change on job satisfaction of women garment workers in Bangladesh. It also explores the strategies for decreasing dissatisfaction of lower skilled workers. The study identifies the relationship between job satisfaction and the overall impact of the change. A set of job satisfaction variables was developed from the Technological Change Survey (Slem and Levi, 1995). The overall impact is defined as how worker9 see the impact of change on income and benefits to the family, and the identity they have as a wage earner. The specific relationship between job satisfaction and the overall impact shows that fair pay, task significance, bureaucracy, conflicts, and sharing information are significantly related. Task significance and information sharing are positively related to the overall impact. Fair pay, bureaucracy, and conflicts are negatively and significantly related to the overall impact. Less fair pay, high bureaucracy, and more conflicts cause a limited positive overall impact on women workers. The positive relationships to technological change include improvement of task significance, salary increase, improvement of the quality of supervision, improved co-workers relations and increase benefits. The negative consequences are unfair pay, work dissatisfaction, bureaucracy, conflicts between management and workers, decreased information sharing, and decreased promotions for workers. Managers, in such a situation, may not be able to resist the increasing change required because of the new technologies but they can do more to manage the change through reducing the level of unfairness in all respects, the level of bureaucracy, the level of conflicts between workers and management, and increasing information sharing with workers. This could be achieved through appropriate human resource policies such as, fair pay, rewards for work, attention to the subordinates’ feelings, work redesign, communicating company goals to workers, sharing information, increasing benefits, increasing promotions, and above all providing more skill training to women garment workers. t Dr Nazrul Islam is an Associate Professor in the discipline of Business Administration of Khulna University, Bangladesh.
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Introduction Bangladesh is a densely populated developing country with a weak industrial base. The gross national product (GNP) per capita is US $370. The standard of living of the people is below the poverty line. About half of 127 million people of the country are women and majority of them live in rural areas. They are primarily involved in household activities. In 1999, the total civilian labor force was 67 million of which 38.86 million was male and 28.14 million was female (World Bank, 2000). Although agriculture is the main occupation of the people employing about 61% of the total labor force, the importance of the garment industry is increasing. Due to the rapid expansion of the economy in the last two decades substantial employment, especially in the garment sector, has been created for lower skilled women workers. This economic growth is backed by foreign direct investment (Ponniah and Reardon, 1999). The government of Bangladesh has implemented liberalization policies to attract these investments. This has helped the country to produce export-oriented garment products along with other manufacturing goods. Garments are the biggest export earner in the manufacturing sector. In 1998-1999, garment sector contributed US $4.02 billlon or over 75% of the total exports of Bangladesh. With the emergence of young entrepreneurs, cheap labor, favorable national policies, quotafree access to the European Union and relatively generous quota difference in the US, this industry has become a significant part of the economy (Quddus and Rashid, 2000). It employs about 1.50 million people, of which 90% are women who come from rural areas (Mohiuddin, 1998). The creation of jobs has encouraged women to leave the rural areas and work in the garment industry. Most of the garment MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
companies are located in two large cities of Bangladesh - Dhaka and Chittagong. h u t 2500 garment companies are located in Dhaka and 500 are in Chittagong. A few of them operate in the Export Processing Zones of Dhaka and Chittagong. Most companies have inadequate working facilities and do not apply the requirements of safety and welfare provisions of Factory Act 1965 (Bangladesh Institute of Management, 1999). The garment sector started booming with around 400 companies in 1985, today it has reached over 3000. Most companies (55%) were established after 1990 (Bangladesh Institute of Management, 1999). This sector enjoys the lowest labor cost advantages in the world. In 1983-1984, the export share of this sector was about 4% of the total exports and in 1998-1999 this share increased to around 76% (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association, 2000). This sector has been expanding at a rate of 20% per year and is predicted that such growth will continue up to 2005 when the global market is quota-free (Siddiqi, 1998 and 1999; Quddus and Rashid, 2000). The reasons for this rapid expansion are mainly quota-restrictedentry into the market of the United States under Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA) and completely unrestricted entry into the markets of the European Union countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) (Mazid, 2001). Investors in Bangladesh also enjoy duty free access to the European markets. The major exporting garment products of Bangladesh are knit and woven shirts and blouses, trousers, skirts, shorts, jackets, coats, sweaters, and other casual and fashion apparels. In 1997, Bangladesh exported 63 items of garment products to USA and EU markets. About 31 of them are Quota Category items. Bangladesh exports garment products to about
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30 countries of the world including USA, countries in European Union (EU), Canada, and most of the Scandinavian and Middle Eastern countries. Bangladesh is the sixth largest garment supplier to the USA and EU countries. The highest export share is in the USA (45%) followed by EU countries (50%) and Canada (3%) (Quddus and Rashid, 1999; Siddiqi, 1999). Bangladesh competes in the lower segment of the garment market among other Asian countries including China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Issues of TechnologicalChange One of the challenges of business globalization for the least developed countries (LDCs) is that technology change erodes the advantages of labor-intensive technology. The textile and garment industry, as a labor-intensive sector, has been undergoing continuous change because of technology. This has a significant impact on workers (Levi, et. al., 1991 & 1992; Slem, et. al., 1986 & 1995; Singh, 1995; Beer, 1997; Ayda and Asuman, 1999). Technological change modifies manufacturing processes by bringing new machines and computerized production processes into the factory. This change demands newer skills for the workers (Yang and Zong, 1998). As a result, unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in manufacturing companies are primarily affected (Gupta, 1989). Garment companies in Bangladesh mainly use labor-intensive technologies in their production because of the availability of low cost labor. Competitor-exportingcountries are using more capital-intensive technologies in producing garments and are continuously moving towards more value added and high quality products. As such, competitiveness in international market is MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
a great concern for the Bangladeshi garment companies (Ali and Speece, 1997). These companies have been upgrading steadily their production technologies by adapting more advanced machines. This technological upgrading of garment manufacturing processes has affected a large number of lower skilled women workers. They feel that technological change reduces their job satisfaction and work performance because they are mostly low skilled and are involved in very narrow range of low value added tasks (Swierczek and Islam, 2000). As technological change brings new machines into the company, reorganizing and redesigning work has negative impact on workers. The lower skilled jobs in Bangladeshi garment companies are flexible, short-term forms of employment, and workers have severe occupational health and safety risks (Ponniah and Reardon, 1999). Inadequate employment security and the industrial support facilities increase the severity of the consequences on these workers (Custers, 1997). This paper is concerned with the impact of technological change on job satisfaction of Bangladeshi women garment workers as more advanced technology is used in the manufacturing process. Technological change refers to adapting a technology that is new to the employment environment and that is more advanced than that used previously (Reardon, 1997). Technological change demands newer skills of workers. This requirement of new skills creates work stress, makes workers dissatisfied with their jobs, and deteriorates the work relations in the company. Job satisfaction impact is highly significant among these impacts because it is directly related to the performance of the workers. The impact of technological change is also related to the overall impact on
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workers. The overall impact is defined as the socio-economic impact of technological change. It includes economic factors such as income, benefits and social concerns, such as, family, or status. The level of change impact depends on the change management processes such as human resource planning, work organization, training and development, worker participation, and information sharing. (Walton and Susman, 1987; Cecilia and Mitter, 1994; Human Resource Development Canada, 1997). The adaptation processes, which facilitate technological change, include workers involvement, employment continuity, information sharing, quality of supervision, union-managementcooperation, and training and development. These mediate the change and its negative impacts on workers (Maznah and Cecilia, 1997). The more effective change management processes lead to less negative consequences on job satisfaction. Technology alone does not determine the acceptance or rejection of technological change, but the way it is managed does. Managers in such situations are facing very difficult decisions related to the performance and the future of these lower skilled women workers. The job satisfaction and the overall impact of technological change on women garment workers is the focus of this research.
Methodology This study assesses the impact of technological change on women workers in Bangladesh. It analyzes the relationship between job satisfaction and the overall impact of technological change on garment workers. The relationships between job satisfaction and age, work experience, and the skill levels of women workers are also analyzed. The attitudes on job satisfaction related to technological change are MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
developed based on Technological Change Survey (Slem and Levi, 1995). This study has been conducted with workers in enterprises. This study is based on primary data. A structured questionnaire was conducted involving women workers. 296 workers were surveyed from the main two hubs of garment enterprises - Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh. Data has been collected from 75 large and medium sized garment companies. This study covered only production companies, which are 50% of the total companies. Only women workers were selected, because they are majority (goo/,) of workers in this sector (Siddiqi, 1998). The sample was selected purposively and surveyed from October 1999 to July 2000.
Sample Selection Around 50% of the total garment companies do not require much technological change in their manufacturing operations and are mainly involved with subcontracting activities and are classified as small size category. The classification of companies has been done based on volume of works and number of workers working in the company. Companies with 500 and more workers are categorized as large, while 200 to 500 worker-companies are categorized as medium. Companies with less than 200 workers are grouped as small companies. There are about 1500 large and medium sized companies, of which 20% are large (i.e., 300 companies) and 80% are medium (i.e., 1200 companies). Garment Directories were used to identify the number of workers in order to select the companies for this study. Each garment company is mainly divided into 3 divisions such as cutting, sewing, and finishing. For well representationof all the functions, two workers from each department of garment
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companies have been selected. In total, 450 women workers were approached for direct interview in which 97 were from large and 353 were from medium sized companies. Direct interviews have been conducted with a structured questionnaire by the help of MBA students in Dhaka University. A brief explanation of the study purpose and the attitudes in the questionnaire were given to the students before starting interview. In total, 296 women workers actually completed the survey in which 53 workers were from large and 243 were from medium sized companies indicating a response rate of about 66%. Barriers to entry to the factory, worker time constraints, and, above all, their lower level of education caused the remaining 34%refusal rate. Sample Characteristics Data has been collected from 296 workers of 88 garment companies. The sample respondents include 16.90% skilled and 83.10% unskilled workers. Skilled women workers refer to those workers who have a minimum level of education (up to primary). They have minimum training to operate the machines. Most of the women workers work on an hourly production basis (84.10%). The other workers included in this study are professional assistants (12.80%) defined as the secretary to manager, clerical (2.80%), and production supervisors (0.30%). The average age of the workers is 18.37 years with 2.67 years of work experience. This profile shows that the women workers in garment companies of Bangladesh are lower skilled with a very low level of work experience and are younger. Managers of these companies often ignore the government rules on minimum wages and deprive them of specific benefits like festival bonus, medical allowance, maternity leave, etc. (Bangladesh Institute of Management, 1999). MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
p 9 5 J
The availability of cheap labor reduces the women workers’ job stability and security. Impact Measurement A structured questionnaire using a seven-point scale has been developed for the job satisfaction variables of garment workers. 36 items were included in this survey. A seven-point scale ranging from 1 to 7 with 1 indicating lowest agreement and 7 indicating the highest agreement is developed for all the job satisfaction variables. For overall impact the scale is divided into 7-points, respondents could indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement. The scale is assumed interval. The scale positive (t3) to negative (-3) was used to measure the overall socio-economic impact of technological change on workers. To ensure the questions were understandable to the women workers, the questionnaire was translated into Bengali. Measurement of Reliability Reliability’ reflects the consistency of a set of scale items in measuring a particular concept. In this study, reliability measurement is important to check the internal consistency of all the attitudes concerning job satisfaction impact. Cronbach’s Alpha2 (a) is computed using SPSS3 reiability program for the set of job satisfaction attitudes. Cronbach’s alpha (a) value for 37 items (36 items for job satisfaction and 1 item for overall impact) in the questionnaire is calculated as .a. Nunnally (1978) has suggested that a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of approximately -70 is sufficient for reliability.
Data Analysis Multivariate Analysis techniques such as, Factor analysis and Multiple Regression analysis were used to analyze the relationships of the attitudes Val. 28 No. 4, November 2003
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of women garment workers on the impact of technological change. A Principal Factor analysis with an orthogonal rotation4(Varimax) using the SPSS statistical package was performed on the survey data and was used to separate the factors of job satisfaction. The relationship of job satisfaction factors with the overall impact of technological change is assessed through Regression analysis. Percentages of agreement and disagreement were used to explain the positive and negative impacts of technological change on job satisfaction and the overall impact on workers. This study uses 5% level of significance for all statistical tests. Correlation has been used to analyze the relationships between job satisfaction factors with age, experience, and skill levels of Bangladeshi women workers.
Job Satisfaction Factors Factor Analysis5 of 36 attitudes in the job satisfaction survey identified 11 main factors6 that account for 67.43% of the variance7in the
Table 1. Factors in Job Satisfaction Factors of Variance
Fair pay I
I
Work satisfaction
I Task significance
18.13
I I
3.78
I
I I
1
10.51
I
2.50
6.93
Salary
2.09
5.81
Supervision
1.85
5.1 5
Bureaucracy
1.52
4.23
Conflicts
1.35
3.74
information sharing
1.32
3.68
Co-worker relations
1.26
3.50
Benefits
I .06
2.94
Promotion
1.01
2.81
I
I
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Fair Pay The first factor identified as fair pay accounts for 18.13% of the variance in the data. Fairness in pay is the most important factor for the job satisfaction of Bangladeshi women garment workers. The eigenvalue of this factor is 6.53. Fair pay relates to six job satisfaction variables including fair amount of pay, fairness in supervision, supervisors’ interests in the feelings of subordinates, and workload. A relatively higher level of factor loadinggof almost all the variables indicates that these variables are very important to measure fair pay. The factor loading values are .76 for fair amount of pay, .61 for fairness in supervision, -76 for supervisors’ interests in the feelings of subordinates, and .72 for workload. The factor loading of two variables such as equitable benefit package and enjoy coworkers are less than .60. The communalitylo values for these variables are .70, .68, .63, .71, .73 and -60 respectively. The higher level of communality of the variables associated to fair pay indicates that each variable is very much related.
1
Work Satisfaction I
I
data. These factors are fair pay, work satisfaction, task significance, salary, supervision, bureaucracy, conflicts, information sharing, co-worker relation, benefits, and promotion (Table 1). The most important job satisfaction factor based on the eigenvalue8is fair pay followed by work satisfaction, task significance, salary, supervision, bureaucracy, conflicts, information sharing, co-worker relation, benefits, and promotion.
-
The next important factor is work satisfaction with an eigenvalue of 3.78. The variance of this factor is 10.51%. It indicates that workers prefer Vol. 28 No. 4, November 2003
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better work. Four attitudes are included: work satisfaction, rewards, sense of pride at work, and reward for work efforts. The factor loadings are 0.784 for work satisfaction, -63 for rewards, .69 for sense of pride at work, and .60 for reward for work efforts. These variables are highly important for measuring work satisfaction. The communality of the variables is also higher. The communality values for work satisfaction is .72, reward is .66, sense of pride at work is .66, and the way of rewarding the work efforts is .73. Task Significance Task significance is the third important factor for Bangladeshi women workers with an eigenvalue of 2.50. This factor explains 6.93% of the variance. The women workers are concerned with task significance and meaningful work. Because of the technological change women workers feel their jobs are harder and the work they do after the change is unnecessary and meaningless. Their efforts to perform well with the new machines are not appreciated by the supervisors. Even if they perform harder jobs, supervisors do not appreciate them properly. Four variables include work meaning, hard work, and unnecessary work. The factor loadings of these variables are .62, -54, and .74 respectively. The communality values of the variables constituted this factor are .56, .72, .64, and .63.This indicates they represent one factor.
Salary Another important factor of job satisfaction for women workers is salary. The eigenvalue and the variance of this factor are 2.09 and 5.81% respectively. The variables are salary increase and promotion. The loading values of the variables are .85 and .81 respectively. The communality values of the variables are .73, .72, MANAGEMENT & LABOUR
STUDIES
and .70 indicate strong association between the variables. Supervision Supervision is the fifth factor important to women garment workers. The eigenvalue and the variance of the factor are 1.85 and 5.15%. The factor supervision is concerned with the variables such as supervisors’ competence, fair chance for promotion for the well-done efforts, advancement in the job, and benefits that the company does not have. The factor loading of the variable supervisors’ competence (.67) mainly explains this factor. The communality values of the variables formed this factor are .77, .76, 58, and -62. Bureaucracy The next factor is bureaucracy with an eigenvalue and variance of 1.52 and 4.23%. The variables composed of bureaucracy are work appreciation, red tape, and unclarity of company operations with the factor loadings of .50, .77, and .59 respectively. The high factor loading scores explain high importance of the variables to measure bureaucracy. The communality values are .63, .70, and .57 indicating a higher level of association among the variables. Conflicts Conflict is another job satisfaction factor for workers. The eigenvalue of this factor is 1.35 and the variance is 3.74%. The variables constituted conflict include rules and procedures of the company, goal of the company, liking supervisor, and bickering and fighting at workplace. The factor loadings are .51, .53, .61, and .53 respectively indicating a higher level of association of the variables with this factor. The communality values are .68, .66, -64, and .76
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factor loading scores of the variables are .52 and .82. These high loading scores indicate that the variables are important to explain promotion. The communality values of the variables are .72 and .72 respectively indicating a higher level of interrelationship between them.
respectively. This indicates higher level of interrelations of the variables. Information Sharing Information sharing is another important factor for women workers. The eigenvalue and the variance of information sharing are 1.32 and 3.68%. The variables formed this factor are communication and raising salary. The factor loadings of these variables are -79 and .71. The very high loading scores indicate higher level of importance of the variables to form this factor. The communality scores of the variables are considerably higher.
Co-Worker Relations Co-worker relation is an important factor for Bangladeshi workers. This factor contains 1.26 of eigenvalue and 3.50% of variance. The variables comprised of co-worker relations are recognition for good works and liking fellow workers with the factor loadings of 5 8 and .65. The communality for recognition for good works is .64 and liking fellow workers is S O indicating very high relationshipbetween the variables. Benefits The next important factor is benefit with and eigenvalue of 1.06. The variance of this factor is 2.94%. Benefit is formed by one variable, which has .76 factor loading value. This indicates that the variable has a very high importance to measure benefit as a factor. Promotion The least important factor of job satisfaction is promotion. The eigenvalue and the variance of promotion are 1.01 and 2.81 Yo.The variables formed this factor are chance for promotion and benefits in comparison to other companies. The MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
Technological Change and Job Satisfaction The Overall lmpact Results The overall impact of technological change on women workers was defined in socio-economic terms. This includes income and social status of workers. Job satisfaction is a part of this overall situation. The factors related to job satisfaction are significantly related to the overall impact of the change. There might be some other issues such as, job security, or work relations that are also related to the overall socio-economic situation of technological change. The results show that the overall impact on women workers is at the positive level, which indicates that the workers are somewhat favorable to the change. Women workers believe that their income, benefits, and sccial status are partially improved by the technological change. The mean score of the responses is 1.08. It indicates that the technological change in the company, where they work, has a slight positive correlation with the overall socio-economic situation of women workers. Positive Job Satisfaction Results The positive results of technological change on job satisfaction of women workers are improved task significance, better salary, higher quality supervision, good co-worker relations, and increased benefits. Technological change is positively related to task significance. Women workers do not like to perform unnecessary and meaningless work.
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The majority (57%) of workers believe that technological change increases the significance of work and they find meaning in performing jobs with new arrangements. However, 31% of workers disagree with the view. They feel that the change increases meaningless and unnecessary works for them.
I Factors I Agree I Neutral IDisagree I I Improve task significance I 56.68 I 12.50 I 30.83 I
Another positive impact of technological change is salary increase. About half (48%) of women workers believe that the change increases their salary. Working with new technologies gives the workers more opportunity to increase salary and to get promotion to better work. However, 29% of workers disagree with this opinion of salary increase. About 23% of workers remained neutral.
Negative Job SatisfactionResdfs The negative results of technological change on job satisfaction of workers are unfair pay, work dissatisfaction, bureaucracy, conflicts, low information sharing, and decreased promotion.
Supervision is positively affected by the technological change. The quality of supervision is improved because the present supervisors are more competent than the past. The majority (54%) of workers agreed that technological change increases the quality of supervision. However, 37% of workers disagree with this perspective. They believe that the quality of supervision deteriorates in technological change.
Unfair pay is a consequence of technological change. Unfair pay is related to salary, supervisors’ behavior, supervisors’ interest on worker feelings, and workload. About 48% of workers believe that technological change increases unfairness in pay. They feel that the company does not pay them fairly. However, 39% of workers feel that the change does provide fair pay for them.
There is a positive effect of technological change on co-worker relations in the garment industry. Good co-workers’ relations increase satisfaction with their jobs. About 76% of women workers believe that technological change improves coworkers relations at workplace. Only very few (4%) workers disagree with this positive opinion.
Work dissatisfaction is a negative result of technological change. Women workers do not like their jobs and they believe that the company does not reward the efforts properly. About 42% of women believe that the new work is not attractive and thus they dislike it. However, around 40% of workers do not think that technological change increases work dissatisfaction.
increased benefits is a positive consequence of technological change on garment workers. As work becomes more sophisticated, higher benefits for the workers are given. The majority (58%) of women workers belong to the group who perceive a benefit increase. About one-fifth of workers do not support this view (Table 2). MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
Table 2. Positive Responses on Job Satisfaction Factors (in percent)
Another negative impact of technological change is increasing bureaucracy that has influence on job satisfaction. Women workers believe that their efforts to good jobs are often blocked by red tape. About 50% of workers agree that the
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change increases bureaucracy in their company. However, 31Yoworkers disagree with this view and they feel that bureaucracy did not increase because of technological change. Conflicts are negatively affected by the technological change. Conflicts emerge when the supervisor dislikes the workers and their working behavior. The majority (55%) of workers is convinced that technological change increases conflicts between management and workers. However, 32% of workers do not agree with this view. They feel that the change does not increase conflicts in the workplace. Information sharing is negatively associated with the impact of technological change. Workers often feel that the communication with the company becomes more rigid in the change. About half (46%) of workers believe that technological change reduces information sharing in the company. The remaining workers disagreed. They believe that the change increases information sharing in their company. Another negative impact of technological change is less promotion. The majority (54%) of workers believes that the change decreases the chance for promotion for workers. However, 36% of workers do not support this view. They feel that the change increases the promotion opportunities (Table 3).
Agree
Significance
.ooo*
Foir poy
Table 3. Negative Responses on Job Satisfaction Factors (in percent) Factors
Regression Coefficient
Foctors
Work sotisfoction
.ooo*
Tosk signifitonce
Neutrol Disogree
Solory
.519
Unfair pay
47.93
13.16
38.85
Supervision
Work dissotisfoction
41.70
18.30
39.95
I Bureoucrocy
Bureoucrocy
49.20
19.60
31.20
Conflicts
-.268
.001*
Conflicts between monogement ond workers
54.72
13.12
32.18
informotion shoring
,309
.ooo*
Co-worker relotions
-.039
,627
low informotion shoring
45.95
8.65
45.45
Benefits
-.019
,812
Less promotion chonce
54.35
9.95
35.60
Promotion
-.125
,122
MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
13001
1
-.350
I
.OOO*
I
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The Impact of Technological Change on Job Satisfaction of Women Garment Workers in Developing Country
An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) shows that all the job satisfaction factors are significantly related to the overall impact of technological change on women garment workers. Together they explain 33% of the variance in the overall impact of technological change. The remaining variance is likely to be job security, work relations, and the context factors. Context factors are aspects of industrial change, or company profitability, etc. The correlation between the factors and the overall impact is 58.
Job Satisfaction and Background Characteristics The age of Bangladeshi women workers has a significant relationship with job satisfaction factors such as fair pay, salary, supervision, conflicts, information sharing, and benefits. A positive significant correlation between the age of workers and fair pay (-292) argues that the higher the age of workers the more the pay will be perceived fair. Older workers have more salary (.161) and fair supervision (.118). Age is significantly correlated to the conflicts between management and workers. The older workers perceive higher level of conflict (.136). They expect more information from the company (.158). The older workers perceive they have more benefits than the younger workers do in garment company (-123). Work experience is significantly correlated with fair pay (.163), salary (.240), supervision (.166), benefits (.270) and promotion (.126). Higher experienced workers enjoy fairness in pay, higher salary, fair supervision, better benefits, and better promotions. Experienced workers perceive more conflicts with the management (.118). The negative significant correlation MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
between work experience and work satisfaction (-.170) means lower experienced workers are more satisfied with their jobs. Skill levels of workers have significant correlation with the factors such as fair pay (.173), work satisfaction (.239), task significance (.164), salary (.156), conflicts (.170), and coworker relations (-.l%). Higher skilled workers feel more fairness in pay, more work satisfaction, and get better salary. They have higher opportunity to perform more important tasks. They perceive high conflicts with the management. Lower skilled workers have higher level of co-worker relations at the workplace (Table 5).
Table 5. Correlation Coefficients of Job Satisfaction and Background Characteristics Job Satisfaction Factors Age
Work Skill Experience levels
Fair pay
.292**
.163**
.173**
Work satisfaction
.018
-.170**
.239**
Task significance
-.096
.054
.164**
salary
.161**
.240**
.I%**
Supervision
.118*
.166**
.019
8ureoucroq
-.088
-.017
.089
I
I
I Conflicts
I .136* I .118* I .170** I
Benefits Promotion *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) **Carrelation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
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The Impact of Technological Change on Job Satisfaction of Women Garment Workers in Developing Country
Conclusions and Recommendations Technological change refers to adapting new machines and manufacturing processes into the company that are more advanced in nature. This change in technology has both positive and negative consequence on job satisfaction of women workers. The level of job satisfaction of Bangladeshi women workers is significantly influenced by the change. Factors related to job satisfaction such as task significance, salary, supervision, co-worker relations, and benefits are positively affected by technological change. The negative influences are unfairness in pay, work dissatisfaction, bureaucracy, conflicts, low information sharing, and decreased promotions. The higher the level of change leads to more unfair pay, work dissatisfaction, conflicts, misunderstanding, and the less opportunities for promotion. New machine increases task importance because it is faster and more capable in production than the old ones. Workers can produce more by new machines and they become more satisfied with their jobs. Better performance of workers increases salary because the change creates opportunity to work with new and more powerful machines. The hourly production workers can produce more than before using more advanced technologies. They also perceive that the change improves the quality of supervision and co-workers’ relations. Above all, the more skilled jobs result in more benefits for the workers. At the same time, technological change reduces job satisfaction of workers. Lower skilled and less experienced women workers feel discomfort with the changed work environment. Technological change increases the likelihood of unfair pay for the lower skilled workers. MANAGEMENT & LABOUR STUDIES
Company makes them hard working with the new arrangements but does not pay fair amount for their extra efforts. Sometimes workers skill levels do not exactly match to operate new machines. The repeated failures with the new machines increase workers dissatisfaction at work. Inadequate rewards for well work also causes the dissatisfaction for workers. The reluctance to share information with workers often hampers smooth and continuous work process. As a result, too much bickering and fighting takes place. Promotions to better positions are limited by the change because of the workers inability to adapt with new working environment. The overall impacts of technological change on women workers are fairly associated to the job satisfaction factors. Factors including fair pay, task significance, bureaucracy, conflicts, and information sharing are significantly related to the overall impact on workers. The specific relationship between the factors and the overall impact shows that the more unfair pay, more bureaucracy, and more conflicts will result in much less positive overall impact on workers. Unfair pay is pay, not based on the labor actual hours the workers perform. Unfair pay is a common practice in garment companies of Bangladesh. Sometimes these companies pay monthly salary after 15 days of the next month in order to reduce the turnover of workers. Moreover, company often deducts from the salary when the workers commit mistakes or damage anything while working. All these actions indicate as unfairness. More significant task and more information sharing with the workers will have a more positive overall impact. The age and experience of workers have significant relationshipswith the job satisfaction factors. This study finds that the older and
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The Impact of Technological Change on Job Satisfaction of Women Garment Workers in Developing Countty
experienced workers perceive fair pay, better salary, quality supervision, and better benefits. The older workers feel that the company shares more information with them. However, older and more experienced workers have more conflicts with management. It is interesting to note that the less experienced women workers are more satisfied with the job although they have lower chance for promotion in the company. This study also finds that more skilled workers are more satisfied with their jobs. The higher skilled workers have more fair pay and higher salaries. However, they have a higher level of conflicts with the management of the company. The reasons for these conflicts are related to the unfair behavior of the company in terms of pay, work pressure, and other unfair practices. Managers in the garment enterprises may not be able to resist the increasing change required because of the new technologies but they can do more to manage the change through reducing the level of unfairness in all respects, the level of bureaucracy, the level of conflicts between workers and management, and increasing information sharing with workers. This could be achieved through appropriate human resource policies such as, fair and equitable pay, rewards for work, attention to the subordinates’ feelings, work redesign, communicating company goals to workers, sharing information, increasing benefits, increasing promotions, and above all providing more skill training to the women garment workers.
2.
Cronbach alpha is a commonly used measure of reliability for a set of two or more construct indicators.
3.
SPSS refers to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.
4.
Orthogonal refers to the mathematical independence of factor axes to each others (i.e., at right angles, or 90 degrees). Factor rotation is the process of manipulating or adjusting the factor axes to achieve a simpler and pragmatically more meaningful factor solution.
5.
Factor Analysis is a type of analysis used to discern the underlying dimensions or regularity in phenomenon. Its general purpose is to summarize the information contained in a large number of variables into a smaller number of factors. It is an interdependence technique in which all variables are simultaneously considered.
6. Factor is a linear combination of the original variables. Factors also represent the underlying dimensions (constructs) that summarize or account for the original set of observed variables.
7.
Notes 1.
measurement of a construct. Highly reliable constructs are those in which the indicators are highly inter-correlated, indicating that they all are measuring the same latent construct.
Reliability simply means that a set of latent construct indicators is consistent in their measurements. In formal terms, reliability is the degree to which a set of two or more indicators ‘share’ in their
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The percentage of variance criterion is an approach in which the cumulative percentages of the variance extracted by successive factors are the criterion. In social science, it is not uncommon for the analyst to consider a solution that accounts for 60 percent of the total Vol. 28 No. 4, November 2003
The Impact of Technological Change on Job Satisfaction of Women Garment Workers in Developing Country
variance (and in some instances even less) as a satisfactory solution.
factors, and key to understanding the nature of a particular factor.
8.
Eigenvalue refers to the column sum of squares for a factor; also referred to as the latent root. It represents the amount of variance accounted for by a factor.
9.
Factor Loading is a measure of the importance of the variable in measuring each factor. It is used for interpreting and labeling a factor. It is the correlation between the original variables and the
10. Communality refers to a measure of the percentage of a variable’s variation that is explained by the factors. It is the amount of variance an original variable share with all other variables included in the analysis. A relatively higher communality indicates that a variable has much in common with the other variables taken as a group.
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