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Analysis of Work Attributes According to Kano Modell and Paired Comparison in the Case of Higher Education Students
6-18Views:73The aim of our study is to examine university students' expectations about job attributes, what are their basic expectations and what factors are attractive when choosing a job. We analyzed the answers of 389 students learning at the University of Debrecen and the University of Nyíregyháza. In the study, we combined the Kano model and the pairwise comparison method. The former is related to Noriaki Kano and his colleagues, and categorizes product quality attributes according to their impact on customer satisfaction. The model is primarily used to assess the quality of a product or service, but has recently been used in areas of management like job satisfaction. The other method is the pairwise comparison, when answerers compare the attributes to each other thus setting up an order of importance. The possibility of merging Kano-model and importance is an opportunity to examine job characteristics more accurately and to apply a refined Kano-model that divides the original categories into two subcategories like critical (important must-be), necessary (less important must-be), high value-added (important one-dimensional), low value-added (less important one-dimensional), highly attractive, less attractive, potential (important indifferent) and care-free (less important indifferent) quality characteristics. In our research, we examined the following attributes’ effect on job satisfaction: wage, relationship with employees, long-term employment, the matching of field of education and work, the work environment, the career opportunity, the matching of education level and work, and company size. According to our results, there are job attributes with clear category, such as wage, which high value added attribute and a low salary causes dissatisfaction while high salary causes satisfaction. Long-term employment is a less attractive, modern environment is a highly attractive factor, so the absence of these does not cause dissatisfaction, but the presence increases satisfaction. Finding a matching job is a carefree attribute. This supports the literature that recent graduates take on jobs that require less education than theirs, if the salary and career opportunities compensate for it. At the same time, it is another question to what extent compensation can be realized if the overeducated earn a lower wage than their matched counterparts. It is possible that accepting the initial lower wage is part of the strategy that the employee moving up on his career ladder will be able to earn higher, but it does not work for everyone. Among the characteristics that cannot be clearly categorized, the career option should be highlighted, which was the most mixed category. For some people, it represents a highly value added attribute and its absence causes dissatisfaction (women), for others it is very attractive and its absence is not a problem (men), but in both cases its presence increases satisfaction. However, there is a group for whom this is a critical characteristic, i.e. its existence is natural, its absence increases dissatisfaction, and this is the MSc graduates. In the case of less congruent professions, matching the field of education to the job increases satisfaction more, but its absence does not cause dissatisfaction. The relationship with colleagues has a highly value added for women, i.e. its absence causes dissatisfaction, but it is very attractive for men, in their case its absence is not a problem. Small company size is a reversal (women) or care free characteristic. Employers should therefore pay attention to career opportunities in the case of freshmen’s with higher level of education, to find and integrate an employee who fits into the company’s environment in order to ensure good relationship with colleagues, as well as to the appropriate salary, since the lack of these causes dissatisfaction among significant groups of young applicants.
