University Teacher’s Perceptions on The Influence of Job Characteristics on Job Satisfaction: A Study on Geography and History Department

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction of geography and history department lecturers at a private and public university in Bandung, West Java. The performance of a lecturer is closely related to his commitment. One of the factors that determine a person’s work commitment is his/ her job satisfaction. Organization must understand how a person’s job satisfaction is formed. Literatures shows that one of the factors that can explain a person’s job satisfaction is the characteristics of the work he/ she does. Data were obtained from 105 geography and history lecturers. The results of hypotheses testing indicate that job characteristics which consisting of five dimensions (job variety, job identity, job significance, job autonomy, and job feedback) have a positive and significant effect on the job satisfaction of the lecturers. The implication of this study is that education institution management must be able to develop job characteristics that are perceived as appropriate and interesting by lecturers. If the perception of the lecturers is good about the characteristics of the work or tasks they do, then their level of job satisfaction will be high. This high job satisfaction will trigger the formation of a higher commitment, which in turn will improve the performance of the lecturers.