Categories of thought of managers, clerks, and workers about jobs and people in an industry.

What effect does the use of categories by various groups have on communication? What can be gained by analyzing categories of thought about jobs and people in industry? "Triads of jobs and people were presented to 105 Ss. The Ss were managers, clerks, and workers in a small New York State industrial concern. The Ss were asked 'Which one of these three jobs (people) is more different from the other two?' and 'Why?' The characteristics that differentiated one member of the triad from the other members were listed. Certain differences in the lists obtained from the various groups were observed. An attempt was made to assess the significance of these differences for inter-group communications in industry." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of semantic structures in American Southwest culture groups.

"The present study is one of a series investigating the similarity of semantic structures for different groups of subjects… . The factor structures of a sample of semantic scales indicated that Zuni, Hopi, Spanish, and English-speaking Ss define a semantic space with similar evaluate and dynamism dimensions. Although the semantic space for a group of Navaho could be defined with the same dimensions, the similarity measures were consistently lower for this group." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Union attitude and job satisfaction in Indian workers.

Relationship between attitude towards union and job satisfaction was studied on a sample of 100 workers in a light engineering factory in India by use of specially constructed interview schedules. There was a significant negative association between the 2 measures (r = -.47). Of the personal factors—age, marital staus, and length of union membership were significantly related to job satisfaction (p     

A comparative factorial analysis of semantic structures in monolingual Indian and American school children.

430 monolingual, Hindi-speaking elementary school children in India and 200 English-speaking Ss in the United States rated 15 concepts on 15 bipolar semantic scales. Factor analyses yielded a bifactor common space for the United States sample, and 3- and 4-factor space for the 8- and 12-yr-old Ss, respectively, in the Indian sample. The common denominator, evaluative, potency, and activity semantic space, was observed in both cultural samples. The 2 sample factor structures showed evidences of factorial congruence. Between sample factorial dissimilarities are suggested to be due to Culture-Concept-Scale interactions. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job attitudes in management: V. Perceptions of the importance of certain personality traits as a function of job level.

This study investigated managers' perceptions of the relative importance of 10 personality traits for success in their managerial roles, as a function of level of position within management. Data were obtained by means of a questionnaire in which the 10 traits were rank ordered in importance by over 1800 respondents from all parts of management and all types of companies. The 10 traits consisted of 5 Other-Directed or Organization Man type traits, and 5 Inner-Directed type traits. Results showed that Inner-Directed traits were perceived as more important at each higher level of management and thereby Other-Directed traits were seen as more important at each lower level of management. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cumulative communality cluster analysis of workers' job attitudes.

On the job what do workers indicate to be most important or to give them the most satisfaction. Using job attitude questionnaires of 100 items each on 2 groups of workers totaling 1000 workers, in 2 plants, items common to the 2 inventories used, totaling 68 questions, were divided into those marked "very unfavorable" and those "very favorable," and studied by factor analysis. "The two sets of clusters were quite similar… . It is concluded that these kinds of variation may be common to a wide variety of industrial jobs and that they do not depend strictly on the questionnaire used or on the method of analysis." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3LH23H. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A semantic analysis of a normal and a neurotic therapy group.

"The purpose of the research… was to see if S's entering therapy can be differentiated from persons that have never been in therapy by meanings they associate with certain selected concepts and to test for areas where semantic changes followed therapy, especially as they may relate to parental identification… . The findings indicate that control S's can be differentiated from therapy S's prior to therapy by the meaning they attribute to the concepts of the self and of parents… therapy affects the self-estimate and not the judgment of parents… ." The research is related to the findings of Rogers and Dymond (1954), Greenspoon (see 30: 4488), and Verplanck (see 31: 2940) on verbal reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential perception of certain jobs and people by managers, clerks, and workers in industry.

"… describes the use of the semantic differential for the study of how certain jobs and certain people are perceived by various groups of industrial Ss… . Five jobs and 6 people were rated on 38 scales of corresponding semantic differentials by 156 Ss representing various groups in industry." Supervisors considered successful and unsuccessful by vice-presidents were both considered successful by subordinates. "… the most significant variable in the perception of jobs is the level of the job… . the managers make finer discriminations between jobs than do the workers… . The findings suggest that management ought to consider the tendency of workers to value their jobs more than management values them, in its communication to them." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Properties of organization structure in relation to job attitudes and job behavior.

This article reviews the results of empirical field studies that have investigated the relationships between properties of organization structure and job attitudes and job behavior in business and industrial organizations. The following 7 structural properties were examined: organizational levels, line/staff hierarchies, span of control, subunit size, total-organization size, tall/flat shape, and centralized/decentralized shape. At least 5 of these 7 variables (with the possible exceptions being span of control and centralized/decentralized shape) were found to be significantly related to one or more attitude or behavioral variables. Implications of these findings for organization theory and future research are discussed. (3 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

No security: A meta-analysis and review of job insecurity and its consequences.

Meta-analytic techniques were used to estimate how job insecurity relates to its postulated outcomes. Consistent with the conceptual framework, the results indicate that job insecurity has detrimental consequences for employees' job attitudes, organizational attitudes, health, and, to some extent, their behavioral relationship with the organization. Moderator analyses suggest that these relationships may be underestimated in studies relying on single-item measures of job insecurity and that the behavioral consequences of insecurity are more detrimental among manual, as compared with nonmanual, workers. Recommendations made for future research include utilization of multidimensional measures, consideration of a broader spectrum of outcomes and moderators, and use of longitudinal designs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some determinants of job satisfaction: A study of the generality of Herzberg's theory.

This paper criticized the Herzberg theory that certain work-situation variables ("satisfiers") produce positive, but not negative, job attitudes, while other variables ("dissatisfiers") produce negative, but not positive, job attitudes. Several deficiencies in the methodology of the Herzberg study were discussed. There were: the narrow rang of jobs investigated, the use of only 1 measure of job attitudes, the absence of any validity and reliability data, and the absence of any measure of overall job satisfaction. It was concluded that generalizing the Herzberg results beyond the situation in which they were obtained is not warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The definition and measurement of job involvement.

The purpose of the present research was to define job involvement, develop a scale for measuring it, gather evidence on the reliability and validity of the scale, and to learn something about the nature of job involvement through its correlation with other job attitudes. This paper describes the development and validation of a scale measuring job involvement, the resulting scales, the relation between job involvement, and other job attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes towards newscasters as measured by the semantic differential: A descriptive case.

How valuable is the semantic differential in measuring audience attitudes toward people they see on TV? An audience of 20 people made semantic differential ratings of 3 TV personalities and the TV program used in this study, and of a person they had watched elsewhere on TV, in a pretest, posttest and follow-up. "The postprogram ratings accurately predicted the follow-up ratings." The evidence favored the validity of the technique. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GD35K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on job performance: Differences between respondent and nonrespondent salesmen to an attitude survey.

Salesmen respondents (N = 72) and nonrespondents (N = 19) to a mail attitude questionnaire were compared in terms of 2 objective measures of performance: net sales points and net total points. Mean scores on both measures were significantly higher for respondents than for nonrespondents. These results tended to follow results of other studies in nonindustrial settings that suggested volunteers or respondents are, in general, "better" persons in terms of such variables as motivation, personality and, in this case, job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of personal work goals in newcomers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment: A longitudinal analysis.

This study examined the importance of 3 characteristics of personal work goals (i.e., commitment, attainability, and progress) in accounting for changes in newcomers' affective job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) during the 1st months of employment. Twenty weeks after organizational entry, 81 newcomers provided a list of their personal work goals. Goal attributes and job attitudes were assessed at 3 testing periods covering 8 months. Goal commitment was found to moderate the extent to which differences in the attainability of personal goals at the workplace accounted for changes in job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Goal progress mediated the interactive effect of goal commitment and attainability on newcomers' job attitudes. Findings are discussed with respect to their relevance for proactive approaches to organizational socialization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)