Growth in the interest of the quality of work has caused researchers to investigate
various aspects of jobs and their contributions to improving productivity over
a long period of time. Among these aspects, job satisfaction is considered the most
often researched organizational variable in the organizational behavior literature
(Blau, 1999; Kiechel, 1989). Locke (1976) conducted a review of job satisfaction
and stated that more than 3,350 articles had been written about job satisfaction
between 1957 and 1976. A literature search using the ABI/Inform search engine
was conducted for the current study using job satisfaction as the selected subject.
For the years 1978 through 2001, this search identified 4,019 citations. Beck
(1990) reported that almost all aspects of job satisfaction, including various theories,
measures, and definitions, as well as the motivational, emotional, and informational
components, have been discussed in the management literature.