Comparison of Optimism, Job Satisfaction and Quality of Work Life of Seafarers and Onshore Staffs of National Iranian Tanker Company

Purpose of this study was comparison of optimism, job satisfaction and quality of work life of seafarers and onshore staffs of National Iranian Tanker Company. The study utilized descriptive with Ex-Post Facto design and statistic population included all of seafarers of National Iranian Tanker Company in spring of 2015 that were 2400 and also all of male onshore staffs of National Iranian Tanker Company in spring of 2015 were 420 that among them, 150 seafarers were selected by random sampling and 240 onshore staffs were selected through targeted sampling. Research tools were Positive Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire of Ingram & Wisnicki (1988), Job Satisfaction Inventory of Smith, Kendall & Hulin (1969) and Quality of Worklife Questionnaire of Timossi, Pedroso, Francisco & Pilatti (2008). Data analysis by multivariate analysis of variance showed that seafarers obtained higher mean score on job satisfaction than onshore staffs. But, there was no significant difference between positive thinking and quality of work life of seafarers and onshore staffs. The results showed that job satisfaction in addition to quality of work life and thinking styles as positive-thinking is affected by many factors, sich as benefits and salary. So effective factors on job satisfaction, such as salaries and benefits could be targeted in increasing job satisfaction of staffs at hard jobs like seafaring.