Introduction and Purpose of the Study
The productivity of public sector employees is a cause of increasing concern in most countries in the 1990s. This concern is particularly great in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the size of the public sector is large in relation to the private sector (compared with other countries), and where the level of governmental revenues have fallen substantially over the past decade.
The productivity of employees in the public sector has been linked to perceptions of job satisfaction by these employees (Amons, 1985, pp. 293 310). In turn, perceptions of job satisfaction have been linked to employee motivation (Locke, 1983, pp. 1297 1349). Motivation, thus, is a key concept in the development of high levels job satisfaction and productivity.
The scientific study into productivity improvement dates at least back to the pioneering work of Frederick Taylor in the second decade of this century. His scientific management began the development of the empirical foundations for the analysis of employee productivity. Later, in the 1930s, studies by Elton Mayo led to the discovery of what was termed the Hawthorne Effect, which led to the development of the human relations approach to management. The human relations approach postulates that treating employees less as if they are automatons will lead to improved productivity.
There were studies of productivity between those of Taylor and Mayo, and there have been countless studies subsequent to
Mayo's studies at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant. The studies of Taylor and Mayo remain significant, however, in that they continue to define the poles of the continuum of human resource management practices, in the context of obtaining optimal productivity.
Hoppock (1935, pp. 151 153) was the first to conduct an intensive study of job satisfaction. As this work emphasized the multiplicity of factors affecting perceptions of job satisfacti...