CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The Nigerian economy has been experiencing slow growth in recent years. This is partly due to external shocks from downturn in the economy of most countries in the West and partly because of the neglect of other sectors in favour of petroleum exploration. Consequently, the corporate sector of the Nigerian economy has been experiencing difficult financial conditions, economic and competitive pressures that tasks salesmen as revenue generating staff. In addition, the income level of the Nigerian workers is relatively low which combined with the global recession affect his disposable income and indirectly the ability of corporate sector to sustain and increase the level of sales volume and revenue of most companies. This espoused situation has somewhat magnified the importance of the roles of salesmen in the generation of sales revenue generation, survival and growth of Nigerian companies. In most developing countries salesmen effectively plays an important role in sales generation and the revenue profile of organizations. However, the revenue contributions can be sustained, perhaps improved only if salesmen and relevant employees are satisfied with their work. Therefore, an important aspect of organizational human resource management that connects indirectly with the prosperity of corporations is the task of securing employees’ job satisfaction. It is one of the most widely studied areas of work attitude (Alam and Mohammad, 2011). Besides, results of research on job satisfaction show the positive and negative effects of job satisfaction on work behavior in organizations. Salespersons are critical resources of organizations in terms of revenue generation and constant interactions with the publics in image building and information generation. Their duties, however, are made difficult by uncertainty of the environmental factors they have to contend with factors that are personal to salesmen and divergence in expectations of various interested groups. Consequently, there is increasing interest in literature not only on salesperson’s job satisfaction (Avinash, 2011) but also in the firm ability to retain them or the salesperson intention to leave their job. One of the ways for an organization to maintain continued relevance and visibility in organizational-customer relationships is the ability to retain existing salespersons with that accumulated goodwill built up over the years. Retention of staff is a desirable goal of any organization as high staff turnover is expensive for organizations (Contino, 2002). Cost of new recruit and the use of temporary staff are reduced when a set of staff is retained for relatively long period of time. Team cohesion is enhanced and work stress is reduced with high staff retention rate (Tzeng, 2002). Indeed, it sounds credible to reason that high labour turnover is both the cause and result of bad management, and a veritable tool for perpetuating bad management. Job satisfaction is considered an important factor in the salesperson retention in an organization (Mulki, Jaramillo, and Locander, 2006). This may be a narrow way of assessing the reasons accounting for salesmen intention to leave the organization. However, this is because job satisfaction is a multifaceted construct which requires isolation of its variables and their relationships with intention to leave. Job satisfaction of salespersons has attracted considerable research attention in the last decades (Pettijohn, Pettijohn and Taylor, 2007). These researches cover both the antecedents: individual different roles, role perceptions, organizational variables and task variables, (Brown and Peterson, 1993) and consequences of job satisfaction: organizational commitment, intention to leave and organizational citizenship behavior (Brown and Peterson, 1993).

Generally intention to leave refers to employees’ perceived probability of leaving an organization, or his willingness to voluntarily and permanently withdraw from the organization. One of the best predictors of labour turnover or turnover behavior is worker’s intention to leave (Samad, 2006). It has been argued in literature that there is a strong and significant positive relationship between turnover intentions and the actual turnover (Lambert, Hogan, & Barton, 2001; Samad, 2006). One of the reasons that cause an individual turnover intention is closely related to job satisfaction. However, despite the richness of literature on job satisfaction most of the researches in this area were conducted in the developed countries. In particular, very little research can be identified in respect of the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave of the salespersons in developing economy like Nigeria.

Statement of the Problem

Employee turnover as a real constantly increasing challenge facing organizations; however the organizations which can put in place an effective strategy to manage human resources through better management practices they will definitely reduce this trend and gain a competitive advantage whereby increasing job satisfaction and retaining the best of the employees in an organization.

Another challenge most organization in Nigeria encounter is how to satisfy their workers to enhance productivity and maximize profit, organizations that are suffering from low productivity, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and lack of growth and low retention of workers is as a result of low job satisfaction of the employees. Insufficient pay, lack of status which leads to job dissatisfaction, this research however is prompt to find out the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave among.

ObjectiveS of the Study

The main objective of this study is to find out the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave among salesmen in Nigeria, specifically the study intends to;

1.     Find out the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave work among Nigeria salesmen.

2.     Investigate the factors that influence job intentions among salesmen

3.     Find out the challenges of job satisfaction among salesmen Nigeria

Research Question

1.     Is there any relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave work among Nigeria salesmen?

2.     What are the factors that influence job intentions among salesmen?

3.     What are the challenges of job satisfaction among salesmen Nigeria?

Research Hypothesis

Ho: there is no relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave work among Nigeria salesmen

Hi: there is relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave work among Nigeria salesmen

Significance of the Study

This research work will be useful in so many ways, firstly it will be useful for organizations & human resource managers can also make use of the findings understand the needs of the employees and the reasons why they decide to quit their jobs.

The outcomes of the study can be used by other the researchers to come up with studies which may result in further expansion of this topic of study.

Scope of the Study

This research work will be conducted in Lagos state, Ikeja LGA will be used for the study, and also this research will also examine the concept of Job satisfaction and intention to leave among Nigerian salesmen.

 Delimitation of the Study

Finance for the general research work will be a challenge during the course of study. Correspondents also might not be able to complete or willing to submit the questionnaires given to them.

However, it is believed that these constraints will be worked on by making the best use of the available materials and spending more than the necessary time in the research work. Therefore, it is strongly believed that despite these constraint, its effect on this research report will be minimal, thus, making the objective and significance of the study achievable.

Definition of Terms

Job Satisfaction: According to Locke (2010) job satisfaction refers to a pleasurable or positive emotional state from appraisal of one job or experience. Allen (2013) found that Job satisfaction can be investigated as either an overall attitude towards the work experience or as multiple components.