How factors affecting farmers job satisfaction in the agricultural sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study aimed to identify factors affecting farmer’s satisfaction in the agriculture sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The factors included in this study were person-job fit, employee empowerment, person-organization fit, self-efficacy, leadership, workload, salary, promotion opportunity, employee training, teamwork, and work environment on job satisfaction of farmers in the agricultural sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The data was collected through a non-random sample of 502 small farm business participants funded by the Malaysian Knowledge Synthesis Grants Global Research Foundation. The questionnaires were distributed in different regions in the Malakand Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and analyzed the data through SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Sciences) and SEM (Structure equation modeling) accordingly. The results show that employee empowerment, person-job fit, self-efficacy, person-organization fit, leadership, salary, promotion opportunity, teamwork, and employee training positively impact farmers' satisfaction levels. However, the workload and work environment adversely impact the farmer’s satisfaction levels. The study concluded that by assigning meaningful tasks, assessing existing compensation, professional recognition, and creating a working environment that encourages and inspires farmers. This research helps better understand the various elements of farmers’ satisfaction and provides input to improve the Malakand Division agricultural sector's productivity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan.

occupations, which tend to be important and vice versa [4]. According to [5], Job satisfaction is a multidimensional and complex construct, meaning different things. In a highly modest business environment, work is the most important characteristic in a person's life because most people's time is spent at work, and worker's job satisfaction is more important than ever [6]. However, lack or absence of job satisfaction may lead to job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, exhaustion, indifference, and rotation, directly or indirectly affecting personal productivity.
[7] believe that job satisfaction can significantly promote the productivity, profitability, and efficiency of organizations in various industries, including agriculture, service, and manufacturing industries. This study focuses on agricultural workers in some private firms in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Pakistan. Its main objective is to identify critical elements such as person-organization fit, person-job fit, employee empowerment, employee self-efficacy, leadership, workload, salary, promotion opportunities, teamwork, employee training, and work environment to work employee job satisfaction. This research endeavor is timely needed because it highlights important aspects of enhancing job satisfaction concerning the agriculture sector in Pakistan, which is the national economy's backbone to infuse greater productivity. The study's findings will serve as a stepping stone to hire, supervise, and develop new strategies and policies for enhancing job satisfaction within the realms of running a farming business [5]. Additionally, this study endeavors to propose strategies to mitigate workers' displeasure, creating a platform for future investigations, and providing benchmarks for upcoming researchers. In the light of the preceding discussion, the purpose of this research is to investigate the associations among employee self-efficacy, person-job fit, employee empowerment, person-organization fit, employee training, leadership, workload, salary, job satisfaction, promotion opportunity, teamwork, and work environment in the agricultural sector of KPK province, Pakistan. The construct of job satisfaction is gaining heightened attention because of its universality and importance to broad spectra of industries, especially agriculture, widely acclaimed as the Pakistan economy's backbone [8]. Organizational psychologists and industry researchers have published numerous research articles and reports on job behaviors and motivations in the agriculture sector's domains. By the early 20th century, job satisfaction in the literature was already remarkable and significant about job satisfaction in the Western world.
[9] noted that from 1935 to 1976, more than 3,000 research studies were published, making it, on average, one study every five days. According to [10], managers now believe that it is their moral responsibility to germinate high worker satisfaction levels, mainly to enhance their control over efficiency, performance, absenteeism, and job-hopping. This is one of the many reasons why work satisfaction is a common concern for practitioners and researchers in many fields, including but not limited to industrial psychology, business, public administration, and agriculture and higher education sectors. Studying work attitudes and people's feelings about work have become an important research field in organizational behavior and productivity analysis [11]. Based on the previous discussion about the importance of job satisfaction, it is naturally interesting to study and further evaluate farmer satisfaction factors. Moving ahead in the same vein, we are now discussing empowerment, person-job, and person-organization fit in the context of research. According to [12], the concept of empowerment stems from job enrichment, participative management, and industrial democracy.
[13] define empowerment as the greater involvement and participation of workers leading to improved decision-making, which is useful for the organization of all sizes. The person-job fit can be defined as the degree to which a person's abilities, knowledge, needs, skills, values, and preferences align with his job or job requirements [14].
Employees with a high degree of Person-Job (P-J) fit indicate that their performance and job satisfaction are high. Most researchers define it as a matching process between an organization and an individual. According to [15], P-O matching is divided into two main categories: additional matching and complementary matching. The former is achieved when a person has similar characteristics to others in the organization. On the contrary, when a person's characteristics add something new to fill the gaps in organizational knowledge and skills, thereby creating value for himself and others, the latter can be achieved.
In the same continuation, the concept of self-efficacy, leadership, workload, and promotion or advancement in farmers' lives is discussed in ensuing lines. Selfefficacy refers to 'people's judgments of their abilities to organize and perform the course of action needed to achieve a designated type of performance . It naturally makes sense that individuals who feel relaxed in their workplace are more productive and enjoy the workflow more than those who feel otherwise, which makes aspects of the employee's work environment more critical in the study. Some problems may hinder the relaxation of the environment, such as noise, ventilation, hygiene of the workspace, and pressure. Work stress can be caused by various reasons, such as the nature of work, work location, monotony, repetition, payment system, shift work, and colleague's attitude.
[26] proclaims that many workers respond differently to different situations. However, it is hard to eliminate stress wholly faced by farmers beyond their control, but experts assert that some form of stress is useful as it brings out the best in certain situations. The objective of the study To examine how factors affecting farmers Job Satisfaction in the Agricultural sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Materials and Methods
The study uses a quantitative research design to check the hypotheses of association among independent and dependent variables, such as employee empowerment, P-O fit, P-J fit, employee training, leadership, workload, salary, promotion opportunity, teamwork, employee self-efficacy, and work environment-on employee job satisfaction in the agricultural sector of the District Malakand of KPK, Pakistan. We chose a causal study for examining the natural environment to reduce the level of interference with the researcher taking a neutral stance [27]. We used a crosssectional survey design to analyze data for results. For the data collection, we used the questionnaire survey technique for the measurement, and the sample design was non-random purposive of sample 502 participants in line with [28] to ensure a representative sample is used. The variable employee empowerment, P-O fit, P-J fit, employee self-efficacy was measured through the construct as developed by In the current research, Cronbach α was used to calculate the reliability by using SPSS. In addition, CFA (confirmatory factor analysis) was used to measure the validity, structural equation modeling (SEM) was also used to test model fitness, and using AMOS 21 software. (Fig. 1).

Results
The results have been given clearly and concisely furnished with the elaboration of figures and tables. As per the research objectives, we summarized the effects of eleven elements-employee empowerment, P-J fit, self-efficacy, P-O fit, leadership, workload, salary, promotion opportunity, teamwork, training, and work environment-on job satisfaction of employee in the agricultural sector, of the KPK-Pakistan in the ensuing discussion.

Respondent's demographic information
Descriptive analysis was employed to identify the demographic information of the interviewees. The results of ( Table 1) shows that out of 502 respondents, 16.9% were female respondents, while 83.1% were male respondents. In terms of age group, most of the respondents, 54%, were in the range of 31 to 40 years, followed by 41-50 years (19.5%). The age category of 21-30 years constitutes 14.1% of the sample size. The smallest group was those above 51 years old (12.4%). The results of ( Table 1) illustrates that of the 502 respondents who participated, 73.9% of the respondents were married, while the remaining 26.1% were unmarried. In terms of education, 2.7% of the respondents' had an MS degree, 32.5% a master's degree, 16.5% a high school certificate, 30.9% a BS/bachelor's degree, While 17.3% had a diploma or lower level qualification. Regarding the respondent's job contract information, only 4.6% of the respondents worked in the existing organization for more than nine years, 12.0% worked for six to nine years, 39.6% work for three to six years, 37.8% worked for one to three years respectively. While the remaining 6.0% of the respondents had less than one year of work experience in the current organizational setup. 18.1% of the respondents earn between PKR 20001 to 30000 per month, while 28.7% earn between PKR 30001 to PKR 40000 per month. Similarly, 37.1% of the respondents earn between PKR 40001 to 50000 per month, while 11.8% earn between PKR 50001 and PKR 60000 per month. Only 1.8% of the respondents earn more than PKR 60000 per month. Similarly, 2.6% of the respondents had income in the range of PKR 20000 or under. See (Table 1) for more details on demographic variables.

Validity and reliability analysis
The results of (   (Fig. 2 & Table 3).

Regression weight for hypothesis testing
As per the theoretical model, the structural equation modeling presented above in (Fig.  2) indicates the associations between the dependent and independent variables of interest phenomena. Estimation of regression coefficients determined in (Table 4) showed that employee empowerment, person-organization, and fit person job fit positively affect employee self-efficacy with values of 0.250, 0.621, and 0.342. Self-efficacy positively relates to job satisfaction with a value of 0.240, while workload and work environment slightly negatively affected employee job satisfaction (-0.047, -0.035). Furthermore, leadership, salary, promotion opportunity, teamwork, and employee training have positively affected the employee job satisfaction with value ranges 0.202, 0.282, 0.280, 0.213, and 0.276 accordingly (Table  4). environments. Therefore, individuals with higher self-efficacy tend to be more positive and active in their employment and working environment, contributing to their work satisfaction. In addition, individuals with higher selfefficacy tend to remain highly persistent in the face of failure and effectively overcome difficulties. Once strong selfefficacy is achieved, individuals are likely to be happy with their employment. Moreover, this study found that leadership has a significant favorable influence on employee job satisfaction and has been supported by previous research [52, 53]. These research results are consistent with the transformational leadership theory, emphasizing leaders' role in providing a supportive work environment for employees, thereby increasing satisfaction and productivity [54]. Moreover, leadership styles and organizational culture are critical organizational antecedents of job satisfaction. Leadership and job satisfaction are considered significant components that influence the organization's overall productivity [55].

Figure 2. Structural equation model fitness for study
This study found that the workload had a negative and insignificant impact on employee job satisfaction, and the results didn't provide support for this hypothesis. This finding was supported by many researchers earlier [56], who found that the workload is insignificantly linked with employees' job satisfaction. The rise in the workload of personnel is inversely related to the job satisfaction of workers. The decline in job satisfaction is generally considered related to anxiety, anger, tension, depression, and fatigue [57]. Excessive workload leads to increased mental and physical stress and dissatisfaction. Hence, we can argue that the more organizational tasks and the number of hours of work per week were associated with emotional exhaustion, which manifests burnout and employee job dissatisfaction. However, salary had a positive and significant influence on employee job satisfaction, and the results support this hypothesis. This financing has been supported by several researchers [58,59], who found that pay is the essential variable for job satisfaction. If a person is paid more, the performance of the individual is likely to rise. [60] stated that Herzberg's theory of motivation-hygiene tells us that pay is one of the hygienic factors that reduce job dissatisfaction. The study also found that promotion opportunities significantly affect employee satisfaction and that the results support this assumption. The results of this study are consistent with previous studies undertaken [ 61,62]. Teamwork can significantly impact employee job satisfaction, and the results also support our hypothesis for this study. Researchers such as [63] and [64] support this finding, and they believe that teamwork plays a crucial role in improving employee job satisfaction. In these environments, teamwork efforts will positively affect employee job satisfaction, as the study results show following [65]. This study found that employee training has a positive effect on job satisfaction for work. It has a positive effect and has been supported by previous research done by [66]. Training plays a crucial role in building new and existing employees, as it helps them perform their job effectively. Training also prepares staff for upcoming positions in an organization with full capacity and helps overcome gaps in workrelated areas. Many researchers have found that the right work environment was related to higher job satisfaction, lower job burnout, and less willingness to leave [53].

Conclusions and Recommendations
The results argue empirically that employee empowerment, person-job fit, self-efficacy, person-organization fit, leadership, salary, promotion opportunity, teamwork, and employee training have a positive impact on farmers satisfaction level in the context of the study. It has been concluded that the workload and work environment adversely impact the farmer's satisfaction levels. The study concluded that assignment of meaningful tasks, assessing existing compensation, professional recognition, and creating a working environment that encourages and inspires farmers improves satisfaction levels. The results indicate that Person-job fit plays a key role in farmer's productivity decreases turnover intention, and improves farmers' work satisfaction, improving their self-efficacy level. Intervention, both internal and external, is required to improve worker's person-organization fit perceptions. The study indicates that selfefficacy can also influence job-related pressure employees experience when dealing with various demands. Our findings suggest that supervisory employees should consider increasing worker's confidence when deciding how to improve job satisfaction. Moreover, a leadership style that involves workers in the decision-making process will provide farmers with even more satisfying opportunities. Likewise, a positive work environment can motivate good organizational leadership and contribute to organizational success in the agriculture sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The study indicates that workers in the farm business who perceive the workload as unfair are more likely than others to execute poorly and may require closer scrutiny and more support and supervision. Salary or compensation is an invaluable tool for retention and a motivational factor for employee's commitment to the organization, improving attraction and retention.
Regarding advancement, workers will be more satisfied if their jobs provide personal and career advancement opportunities, which determines the degree of employee satisfaction. Likewise, teamwork and training positively impact farmer's job satisfaction, making it imperative in contemporary practices. To improve employee's efficiency, productivity, and commitment to work, organizations must meet their staff's needs by providing the right working environment. As the agriculture sector relies heavily on human resources, managers must increase job satisfaction within farming businesses to motivate farmworkers through meaningful tasks, reassessing compensation, professional recognition, and creating a working environment that encourages and inspires workers. The researchers suggest that future research used other variables such as perceived organizational support and self-efficacy also different sectors like telecom, health, and education. The study examines the effects of an extended set of eleven elements on farmers' job satisfaction, unlike prior researchers who had paid scarce attention as evident from the scant empirical treatment of research area having more than six variables in the agriculture sector Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Moreover, Structural equation modeling has been used, which amalgamates a family of related methods rather than a single technique, which further adds credence to the study.