Job satisfaction and technology in Mexico

The introduction of new technologies is one of the greatest benefits that MNCs can bring to developing countries, and the speed and importance of this technology transfer appear to be increasing. Therefore, the management of developing country workforces in changing technological settings becomes an important issue for MNCs. In this paper, we address this issue, with an emphasis on job satisfaction. Data were collected through a survey of line workers at two factories in Mexico. Both were owned by one parent company, operated under the same set of administrative procedures, and were located within 10 miles of each other. However, one factory used 30-year-old technology, while the other was state-of-the-art. In the low-tech factory we found that intrinsic job characteristics were more closely associated with overall job satisfaction and that job commitment was a relatively more important issue than in the high-tech factory.