Sport and Recreation Officials’ Role Innovation, Job Enjoyment and Their Relationship with Job Satisfaction and Intention to Stay in a Developing Country

Abstract

Although job satisfaction has been widely researched among organisational behaviour researchers in various types of organisations, its antecedents such as role innovation and job enjoyment have been scarce in literature. There is a notion that various attitudinal constructs may influence a wide range of behaviour of employees’ propensity to stay in organisations. This study offers a conceptual model and proposes the relationships between the constructs: role innovation, job enjoyment, job satisfaction and intention to stay. Data were collected from 201 sport and recreational officials in Gauteng, South Africa, through a structured questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modelling (SEM) were used to test the model fit and hypotheses. The results revealed that sport and recreation officials’job role innovationpositively influenced job enjoyment. Role innovation and job enjoyment positively influenced job satisfaction. Finally, job satisfaction in turn positively influencedsport officials’ intention to stay in the department. In view of causal relationships between role innovation and job enjoyment, it is recommended that intervention programmes be instituted to enhance the level of role innovation while jobs should be re-designed to instil job enjoyment and job satisfaction in sport and recreation officials. The reward system could also be structured in a manner that would reinforce role innovation and intention to stay, which could possibly lead to job satisfaction.

Keywords: Job Enjoyment, Role Innovation, Job Satisfaction, Intention to Stay, Sport and Recreational Officials