Globalisation has impacted considerably on many organisations.

The significant social,

economic and technological changes have made a very good chance for managers, employers

and employees to interact with people from very diverse cultures (Mackey, 2008). Because of

globalisation, the management of cross-cultural issues and diversity are increasingly crucial

for any company’s success (Mackey, 2008).Lots of big companies have many employees

who have different religious and cultural differences, and these companies should improve

their satisfaction. According to Kirkman and Shapiro (2001), the improvement in the

employees’ job satisfaction has a strong relationship with the companies’ other positive

outcomes. If employees satisfied in their jobs, they will be satisfied in their lives (Kirkman &

Shapiro, 2001). That tends to decline the absenteeism of the employees (Campling et al.,

2008; Ybema, Smulders, & Bongers, 2010). Additionally, fewer employees may leave the

company (Purani & Sahadev, 2008).

This chapter begins with a brief definition of cultural and religious values differences, and the

important dimensions of culture. Secondly, the concept of employees’ job satisfaction will be

defined; job satisfaction will be presented, after that measures and associates of job

satisfaction illustrated. Thirdly, there will be more focused review specifically related to this

study, presenting studies of cultural and religious differences and job satisfaction.

The concept of culture refers to the beliefs, values and patterns of manners which are shared

among group of people (Campling, et al., 2008). Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s (1952) definition

of culture is one of the most important definitions that A lot of books used in defining culture

“Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and

transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including

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their embodiment in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e.

historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values”

Cultures have a lot of important dimensions such as language, space use, time orientation,

religion, and the role of contrast (Cmapling, et al., 2008).This research focuses on language

and religious differences. Firstly, language is on of most popular and important cultural

dimensions because it is the medium of any culture and provides the way business and any

other relationship work in a culture and even in the same language accents can vary, and can

provide the same understanding that it gives for language differences (Campling, et al.,

2008). Secondly, religion is not an easy thing to define because it is very fuzzy set. However

a lot of writers refer to Williams definition of religion as “Religion, therefore, as I now ask

you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual

men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever

they may consider the divine” (Carrette, 2005).

There are a lot of measures of quality of work; this research focuses on job satisfaction as on

of these measures. There are a lot of definitions of job satisfaction; one of these definitions is

that job satisfaction is the ‘degree to which an individual feels positively or negatively about

various aspects of the job’ (Campling, et al., 2008)

There is a very strong association between job satisfaction and absenteeism and turnovers,

and this can these are very costly in terms of the employees recruitment and training, in

addition to the lost of productivity while training new employees (Campling, et al., 2008).

Additionally, religious and cultural values influence employees at work (Fargher, Kesting,

Lange, & Pacheco, 2008). This means, that cultural values can significantly influence the

employees job satisfaction (Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007). A quantitative study with a large

sample of workers finds that workers with more religious and cultural beliefs have higher

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levels of job satisfaction than workers with less religious and cultural values (Duffy, 2006).

There is increasing evidence the programs which improve spirituality in the workplace tend

to improve the individual level outcomes for employees such as job satisfaction (Karakas,

2010). Because of the previous reasons companies must think of ways respect and

accommodate there employees’ cultural and religious values to success.

There a lot of research on how job satisfaction tends improve productivity and reduce costs.

Additionally, there are a lot of studies focus on cultural and religious values and how it can

influence employees. However, there are a few studies that focus on the association between

the companies’ cultural and religious values accommodation of there employees and the

employees’ job satisfaction. This research illustrates how companies cam improve there

employees’ job satisfaction by accommodating there cultural and religious values.

Campling, J., Poole, D., Wiesner, R., Ang, E. E., Chan, B., Tan, W.-L., et al. (2008).

Management 3rd Asia -- pacific Edition. Milton Australia: John wiley & sons

Australia, Ltd.

Carrette, J. R. (2005). William James and the Varieties of Religious Experience: A Centenary

Celebration: Routledge.

Duffy, R. D. (2006). Spirituality, Religion, and Career Development: Current Status and

Future Directions. [Article]. Career Development Quarterly, 55(1), 52–63.

Fargher, S., Kesting, S., Lange, T., & Pacheco, G. (2008). Cultural Heritage and Job

Satisfaction in Eastern and Western Europe. [Article]. International Journal of

Manpower, 29(7), 630–650.

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Gelfand, M. J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007). Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior.

[Review]. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 479–514.

Karakas, F. (2010). Spirituality and Performance in Organizations: A Literature Review.

[Article]. Journal of Business Ethics, 94(1), 89–106.

Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. (2001). The Impact of Cultural Vlues on Job Satisfaction

and Organisational Commitment in Self-managing Work teams: The Mediating Role

of Employee Resistance. [Article]. Academy of Management Journal, 44(3), 557–569.

Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture a Critical Reveiw of Concepts and

Defenitions. [Review]. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and

Ethnology-Harvard University, 47(1), 3–217.

Mackey, K. (Ed.). (2008). Managing Human Resources. Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia Pty

Ltd.

Purani, K., & Sahadev, S. (2008). The Moderating Role of Industrial Experience in the Job

Satisfaction, Intention to Leave Relationship: an Empirical Study Among Salesmen in

India. [Article]. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 23(7-8), 475–485.

Ybema, J. F., Smulders, P. G. W., & Bongers, P. M. (2010). Antecedents and Consequences

of Employee Absenteeism: A Longitudinal Perspective n the Role of Job Satisfaction

and Burnout. [Article]. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,

19(1), 102–124.