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This study offers a global comparative analysis of variables associated with job satisfaction, specifically work-life balance, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, and work relations on job satisfaction for hotel housekeepers.

The study analyzes these variants across 29 countries using International Social Survey Program data.

Findings indicate significant differences in job satisfaction for hotel housekeepers across countries, lower job satisfaction for hospitality occupations compared to all other occupational categories, lower job satisfaction for hotel housekeepers than employees in other hospitality occupations, and a statistically significant positive impact of some elements of work-life balance, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, and coworker relations on job satisfaction.

The hospitality industry is characterized by poor work-life balance, high turnover rates and limited rewards. Hotel housekeepers report lower levels of satisfaction than other hospitality workers in terms of work-life balance, pay, relationships with managers, useful work and interesting work. Housekeepers play an important role in hotel quality and guest satisfaction. As such, understanding and addressing factors contributing to job satisfaction for hotel housekeepers is critical for managers

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.