Task value, goal orientation, and employee job satisfaction in high-tech firms

Operating in highly competitive environments, high-tech firms leverage capital-intensive facilities, technology-intensive products and computer applications to earn competitive advantages. Doing so requires employees perform tasks that are relatively more complex in comparison with other industry sectors. Employee job satisfaction, a surrogate measure of organizational effectiveness/performance, is an important management index for practitioners and researchers. However, the impact that task value and goal orientations, as perceived by employees during task execution, have on individual and organizational effectiveness/performance has not received sufficient attention in the context of high-tech firms. This study integrated two theories, expectancy-value and achievement goal, to explore the effect of task value and goal orientation on high-tech employee job satisfaction. After surveying 156 respondents in six Taiwan-based multinational high-tech manufacturers, results show that task value and goal orientation affect employee job satisfaction in the high-tech sector positively. Findings provide guidance to managers for improving employee job satisfaction and in-depth insights for researchers interested to test or further develop organizational development theories.