Organizational culture and job satisfaction: identifying key drivers through efficiency analysis

This study investigates which job satisfaction variables hold relevance across different organizational cultures. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), an efficiency frontier method, the study evaluates data from a job satisfaction and organizational culture questionnaire, covering 23 variables across four cultural frameworks. The sample comprises 305 valid responses from Brazilian workers between July 2020 and May 2022. The findings reveal distinct patterns in job satisfaction priorities across cultural settings. In Collaborative cultures, critical factors include Variety of Work and Workload. In Competitive cultures, priorities shift to Health and Safety and Job Market. Dynamic cultures emphasize Emotional Health and Opportunities for Growth, while Standardized cultures focus on Life outside the company and Job-status. DEA was selected over methods such as stochastic frontier analysis, multicriteria decision-making, regression models, or structural equation modeling due to its non-parametric nature, allowing evaluation of multiple outputs and inputs without requiring assumptions about functional form or selecting subjective weights. This methodological choice enables a more nuanced, context-sensitive analysis of organizational behavior. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to apply DEA to explore the interplay between job satisfaction and organizational culture, offering a perspective for optimizing workplace strategies and improving employee engagement.