Abstract:
This study was motivated by the observed continued high turnover of employees from the
Seventh-day Adventist (S.D.A) Church Education institutions. The purpose of this study
was to determine the level of employee’s job satisfaction and the relationship between the
organizational culture dimensions (institutional dominant characteristics, institutional
leadership styles, management of employees, strategic emphasis, institutional glue and
the criteria for measuring success in the institutions) and employee’s job satisfaction
among the employees of Seventh-day Adventist (S.D.A) church maintained education
institutions in Western Kenya region. In spite of there being many studies that had been
carried out on the relationship between organizational culture and employee’s job
satisfaction in Kenya and the world at large, there was so far no documented study that
had specifically studied the relationship between the organizational culture dimensions in
this study and specifically in the (S.D.A) Church maintained education institutions in
Kenya. Therefore, this study forms a basis for reference not only to the managers of the
S.D.A Church education institutions but also to prospective researchers. This study
employed an explanatory research design and specifically survey. This approach was
adopted owing to the fact that the study aimed at explaining the phenomena of the study
rather than just describing them. Furthermore, an explanatory research is useful when a
study aims at testing hypotheses as the case was with this study. Data was collected using
a self constructed structured questionnaire administered to the teaching and support staff.
A total of 380 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents. However, the usable
questionnaires were 308. Data collected was presented in form of tables. The Statistical
Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. Data analysis was
done at two levels. At the first level, data was analyzed using descriptive statistics that
included frequencies, percentages, the mean, and the standard deviation. At the second
level, multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the study hypotheses. Study
findings from the descriptive statistics indicated that the level of employee’s job
satisfaction in the institutions was generally low indicated by a high employee turnover.
The inferential statics led to the findings that: institutional dominant characteristics,
leadership style, management of employees and strategic emphases are significant and
positive predictors of employee’s job satisfaction. However, the study findings indicated
that institutional glue and the criteria used by the institutions to measure their success
were not strong predictors of employee’s job satisfaction in the S.D.A Church Maintained
education institutions. On the overall the study established that the prevailing
organizational culture dimensions could account for up to 73.4% of the variance in
employee’s job satisfaction in the S.D.A Church maintained education institutions. The
researcher recommends that the institutions should redefine the glue that holds the
employees together and redefine their criteria for measuring success because the study
findings indicated that the current measures do not contribute to employee’s job
satisfaction. Further, the institutions should work to improve the level of employee’s job
satisfaction because the study findings pointed to a low employee’s job satisfaction.