A New Look at Job Satisfaction in the Small Firm

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Abstract
The widely accepted view that job satisfaction is higher among workers in small firms than their large-firm counterparts, especially in terms of non-monetary and expressive aspects of work, is critically examined. Workers employed in small and large firms in the printing and electronics industries were surveyed using a semistructured interview strategy. Job satisfaction was related to work environment and also nonwork influences such as family life-cycle position. The findings show that when such factors as the specific characteristics of the industry and age and marital status of respondents are taken into account, size of firm is not, in itself, an important factor in explaining differences in levels of job satisfaction. It merely interacts with these other influences, sometimes to raise and sometimes to lower, perceived levels of satisfaction.