Browsing by Author "Mattsson, Carita"

The relationship between employee job satisfaction and customer satisfaction and the impact of these measures on the profitability of a company has been studied extensively. It has been shown that for companies with high levels of job satisfaction, customer satisfaction can be higher compared to companies with lower levels of employee job satisfaction. Similarly, previous works have documented that customer satisfaction can improve the profitability of a company. Furthermore, some scholars have found that job satisfaction enhances customer satisfaction while some have found an impact with opposite direction. This Master’s thesis was conducted with the aim to find out how job satisfaction, customer satisfaction and profitability are related in the Finnish grocery retail industry. The empirical part of the study consists of analyses of employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction surveys that were conducted by third parties before this master thesis was started. These surveys were combined and matched with profitability data, where operating margin was used as a proxy for profitability. This combined data is based on 374 Finnish supermarket grocery stores which means approximately one third of all stores in this category. As the sales of supermarkets is together nearly one half of the Finnish grocery sales, is this study representing about one sixth of all grocery purchases of Finns. The study applied the service-profit chain model (Heskett et al., 2008) as a conceptual framework. The model considers the interrelationships between internal service quality of the company, job satisfaction, retention of employees, productivity of employees, external service value, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, revenue growth and profitability. The main research method applied was qualitative comparative analysis (Fs/QCA). The results suggest that the internal service quality of the company under investigation has an impact on the job satisfaction of employees. Job satisfaction improved when the employees experienced their job interesting and felt that the work they do is important. In addition, especially the work atmosphere but also leadership and good work conditions positively influence job satisfaction. According to this study, job satisfaction did not, however, have a direct impact on customer satisfaction, efficiency or profitability of the company. Customer satisfaction increased customer loyalty as expected. In light of this study, and for the specific context investigated, it seems possible by the focal company to positively affect employee job satisfaction by supporting a good work atmosphere. Although this research found no robust evidence on the relationships between job satisfaction and customer satisfaction, job satisfaction and efficiency of the company nor job satisfaction and company profitability, it is notable that the analyses gave some indication that work atmosphere, leadership and good work conditions might have a positive impact on financial performance of the focal company. These are the same factors that were highlighted as drivers of job satisfaction. Thus, the inter-relationship between these concepts should be further explored in the future.