Reports on the results of a survey of 220 front-line supervisors in Hong Kong using the job descriptive index (JDI) to investigate the perceived impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on job satisfaction. Shows that the respondents were much less satisfied with the work dimension than with other JDI dimensions such as supervision and co-workers. TQM programmes seemed to have no impact on pay and promotion. The respondents perceived that the TQM programmes had led to a variety of changes which made their jobs more demanding, requiring greater individual skill and accuracy, but did not make their jobs more interesting and important. Discusses significance of these findings in the context of the need to provide employee satisfaction in total quality management.

Investigations of the causal relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction have yielded contradictory findings. Little empirical research has looked at this complex relationship in the context of work effort. The purpose of this study was to determine how these variables interact in the service environment. Using a sample of 425 employees in two service organizations, the author tested two structural equation models. The hypothesized model with organizational commitment as a moderator between job satisfaction and service effort fit better than a model with job satisfaction as moderator did. Conceptual implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.

Investigates the career development expectations of male and female managers working for a large UK company operating in the brewing and hospitality area, which had undergone significant restructuring and delayering. Compares the company view on career development with those of individual managers, and finds that the company expected individual employees to take responsibility for their own development while managers reported that they were ill-prepared to do this. Asks about the likelihood of promotion, and where the barriers to career development lay (family commitments, prejudice of colleagues, lack of personal motivation, etc.). Discovers that the male and female managers shared the same perceptions of these barriers. Outlines how the attitudes and behaviours of employees could be changed to prepare them to take on the main responsibility for their career development.