Agile working and job satisfaction for localization language agents

Abstract The localization industry has developed at the levels of content, technology and workflow. While agility can describe any virtual job nowadays, its application in localization should be highlighted, since agile working is now widely adopted in developer teams. Job satisfaction has been researched within translation studies, sociology of work and organizational research. This article addresses the impact of agile working in localization, as a virtual and IT-related domain, on the job satisfaction of localization language agents. It is based on a survey and tackles agile working aspects that are relevant to the translation workflow in localization. It also borrows key job satisfaction elements from other domains, which can reveal understudied areas in our domain. The results show, for example, a positive relationship between job satisfaction and in-process and in-team recognition, as well as autonomy. Job satisfaction is lower when there is a lack of context or small-size projects.