A meta-analysis of the relation of job characteristics to job satisfaction.

Determined, using meta-analysis procedures, the relation between job characteristics and job satisfaction in 28 studies. The role of growth need strength (GNS) as a possible moderator of this relation was also investigated. Results indicate a moderate relation between job characteristics and job satisfaction. This relation was stronger for employees high in GNS. It is suggested that situational characteristics were more important in determining satisfaction for employees low in GNS. A model based on these findings is proposed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity of job facet importance: A multinational multicriteria study.

Compared the importance of various job aspects, or facets, in predicting different criteria. Questionnaire measures were obtained from 2,376 salesmen and 6,331 repairmen of an international firm in 5 countries. Employees' ratings of facet importance were compared to facet importance defined empirically (i.e., by the correlation of facet satisfaction with various criteria). The importance of job facets, while similar among the 5 countries, varied with the criterion used. Higher order job facets were most important for predicting overall satisfaction and intent to stay with the company but were least important for predicting work tension. In multiple correlations with facet satisfactions, adding employees' nationality improved predictions only of performance ratings; adding employees' occupation improved predictions only of intent to stay. (29 ref) (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)     

Relative importance of job characteristics.

1311 managerial-supervisory, 3653 salaried, and 6192 hourly employees rated 68 job characteristics for importance. Considerable agreement was found in the ratings, in particular, as to the most and least important characteristics. Disagreements largely seem related to the nature of the work by a particular employee group. Another facet of the study showed that different methods of measuring importance yield different results. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Position choice: Comparing the importance of organizational and job factors.

Examined the relative importance of 3 job factors and 3 organizational factors in individual position choice decisions and used a new methodology for determining such relative importance weights. The study also examined 2 individual differences—growth need strength and amount of previous work experience—as potentially influencing the relative importance of job and organizational variables. Data were collected from 62 American and Canadian graduate management students. Results suggest that pay and fringe benefits were the most important factors in the position choice situation, followed by use of skills and abilities, responsibility and leadership, and autonomy and independence, with flexibility of working hours and types of services the organization provides the 2 least important factors. Growth need strength and amount of previous work experience were related to relative importance of job and organizational variables. The advantages and disadvantages of the new methodology are assessed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The causal relation between job attitudes and performance: A meta-analysis of panel studies.

Do job attitudes cause performance, or is it the other way around? To answer this perennial question, the author conducted meta-analytic regression analyses on 16 studies that had repeatedly measured performance and job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction or organizational commitment). The effect of job attitudes on subsequent performance, with baseline performance controlled, was weak but statistically significant (β = .06). The effect was slightly stronger for commitment than for satisfaction and depended negatively on time lag. Effects of performance on subsequent job attitudes were elusive (β = .00 across all studies), which suggests that job attitudes are more likely to influence performance than vice versa. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interaction of social skill and organizational support on job performance.

The present study examined the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationship between social skill and supervisor-rated job performance. On the basis of regulatory and activation models of behavior, the authors argue that low-POS environments activate social skill because they reflect situations in which interpersonal acuity is required to demonstrate effective job performance. Accordingly, the authors hypothesize that social skill is more strongly related to performance among workers reporting low rather than high levels of organizational support. Results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses on data gathered from 2 samples support the hypothesis. These results suggest that the relevance of social skill to job performance may be dependent on contextual cues. Implications for substantive research, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition of understanding and skill in relation to subjects' preparation and meaningfulness of instruction.

4 experiments examined effects of a total of 224 college students' aptitudes, preinstructional experience, method of instruction, and differences among posttest items. Instruction that emphasized meanings of concepts led to better performance on posttest items requiring understanding, but Ss with emphasis on computation performed better on simple problems. Ss with higher measured aptitudes directly relevant to instruction or given relevant preinstructional experience had more success in meaningful instruction than did Ss with lower aptitude scores, but little or no aptitude difference was found for instruction emphasizing algorithms. 2 kinds of operations were distinguished-identifying relevant information in the problem situation and carrying out computations. The former appears more closely related to conceptual understanding, the latter to computational skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Global self-esteem: Its relation to specific facets of self-concept and their importance.

Theory and common sense posit that the effect of a specific facet of self-concept on esteem will vary with the importance of the facet, but little support for this proposal was found in a study of late adolescents and young adults. Subjects, particularly those with high esteem, were more likely to have high self-concepts in facets they perceived to be more important, but their importance ratings did not contribute to the prediction of esteem. Unweighted averages of 12 distinct dimensions of self-concept correlated about .7 with Esteem, but weighting each facet by the importance assigned to it by the entire group, by diverse subgroups, or by each individual resulted in little or no improvement. Neither self-concept/importance interactions nor self-concept/importance discrepancies were able to explain much variance in Esteem beyond that which could be explained by specific facets of self-concept. Nevertheless, some support for the effect of importance was found for the Spiritual and Physical abilities facets, and these were the two facets for which the perceived importance was most variable. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of initiating structure and job performance as moderated by consideration.

Investigated the hypothesis that the effect of initiating structure on the rated productivity and quality of work-group performance in an industrial manufacturing plant is moderated by considerate leader behavior (rated and self-report). Ss were 133 foremen who were administered the leadership opinion questionnaire, and rated by at least 4 managers on 7-point likert scales. Results support the hypothesis when quality but not productivity was the criterion measure. Results are consistent with E. Fleishman and E. Harris's (see pa, vol. 37:3953) finding that grievances and turnover are less affected by initiation of structure when foremen are rated high on consideration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating and reporting sex differences: Methodological importance, the forgotten consideration.

Comments on the article on guidelines for doing nonsexist research by M. C. McHugh et al (see record 1987-00069-001) and the ensuing debate on reporting sex differences in research. The authors argue the methodological importance of such reporting but also of distinguishing sex differences on a dependent variable from differences in sex-by-treatment interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age stereotyping at work: the role of rater and contextual factors on evaluations of job applicants

Using refinements of hypotheses by L. M. Finkelstein, M. J. Burke, and N. S. Raju (1995), the authors examined the effects of rater age, age salience, and job-relevant information on 324 managers' ratings of an older or a younger hypothetical applicant's interpersonal skills, economic worth, and likelihood of being interviewed. They hypothesized that age identity would interact with age salience to produce ingroup biases that would lead raters to favor workers from their own age groups. There was a main effect of target age on all dependent variables, with the strongest effects on the ratings of economic worth: The participants rated the older target as less economically beneficial than the younger target. When age was highly salient and when the raters identified psychologically with their age groups, older raters actually disfavored older workers in ratings of economic worth. The authors also discuss directions of future research into the roles of the target's economic worth and the rater's age identity in age stereotyping and age discrimination in employment decisions.     

Effect of rater training on rater accuracy: Levels-of-processing theory and social facilitation theory perspectives.

We use levels-of-processing theory and social facilitation theory to explain the effect of training format and group size on distance and correlation accuracy, leniency-severity, halo, retention of training and pretraining information, and subject arousal. The training factor included frame-of-reference (FOR) training, information only (INFO) training, and no training (NOT). Group size was n?=?1, n?=?6, and n?=?12, respectively. A total of 108 subjects, randomly assigned to one of nine Training?×?Group Size conditions, viewed and rated videotaped lectures. Results indicated that FOR training effected improved retention of training information, improved distance accuracy, and less halo over INFO training or NOT (p     

Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing rater reliability.

Reliability coefficients often take the form of intraclass correlation coefficients. In this article, guidelines are given for choosing among 6 different forms of the intraclass correlation for reliability studies in which n targets are rated by k judges. Relevant to the choice of the coefficient are the appropriate statistical model for the reliability study and the applications to be made of the reliability results. Confidence intervals for each of the forms are reviewed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-efficacy in relation to occupational consideration and academic performance in high school equivalency students.

A. Bandura's (see PA, Vol 58:5733; see also 1986) self-efficacy theory was tested in relation to occupational consideration and academic performance with 35 High School Equivalency Program students from seasonal farmworker backgrounds. Within-individual and aggregate analyses indicated a moderate to strong relationship between extent of consideration of occupational activities and self-efficacy, interests, and incentives. Individual differences in the strength of the relationship between self-efficacy and extent of consideration were associated with individual differences in generality of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy expectations for academic areas were moderately related to accomplishment and ability, but not to effort, in those areas. The use of incentives as a moderator of the relationship between self-efficacy and occupational consideration illustrated a more complete test of Bandura's theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: A policy-capturing approach.

A review of research on job performance suggests 3 broad components: task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance. This study examined the relative importance of each component to ratings of overall performance by using an experimental policy-capturing design. Managers in 5 jobs read hypothetical profiles describing employees' task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance and provided global ratings of performance. Within-subjects regression analyses indicated that the weights given to the 3 performance components varied across raters. Hierarchical cluster analyses indicated that raters' policies could be grouped into 3 homogeneous clusters: (a) task performance weighted highest, (b) counterproductive performance weighted highest, and (c) equal and large weights given to task and counterproductive performance. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that demographic variables were not related to raters' weights. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From recurrent choice to skill learning: A reinforcement-learning model.

The authors propose a reinforcement-learning mechanism as a model for recurrent choice and extend it to account for skill learning. The model was inspired by recent research in neurophysiological studies of the basal ganglia and provides an integrated explanation of recurrent choice behavior and skill learning. The behavior includes effects of differential probabilities, magnitudes, variabilities, and delay of reinforcement. The model can also produce the violation of independence, preference reversals, and the goal gradient of reinforcement in maze learning. An experiment was conducted to study learning of action sequences in a multistep task. The fit of the model to the data demonstrated its ability to account for complex skill learning. The advantages of incorporating the mechanism into a larger cognitive architecture are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A method for investigating sources of rater bias.

Few studies in counseling and psychotherapy have investigated rater bias. The purpose of this study was to outline a method for studying rater bias. We studied three potential sources of rater bias: (a) characteristics of the rater, client, and therapist; (b) the similarity of characteristics between rater and therapist or client; and (c) perceived similarity between rater and therapist or client. We used a new rater-bias measure. The data for the study were ratings on the Collaborative Study Psychotherapy Rating Scale for 826 sessions of psychotherapy in the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. High interrater reliability was found for all scales of the measure. We found evidence of rater bias only on the facilitative conditions scale. Rater bias was not found for the other scales, perhaps because of the extensive development of the measure, careful selection of the raters, lengthy rater training, and continued contact with raters throughout the rating period. The rater-bias measure may be useful to other researchers as a means of testing the reactivity of their measures to rater bias. Finally, the method for investigating rater bias can be used by other researchers to evaluate rater bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applying trained skills on the job: The importance of the work environment.

The influence of the work environment on the transfer of newly trained supervisory skills was examined. Participants were 505 supermarket managers from 52 stores. The work environment was operationalized in terms of transfer of training climate and continuous-learning culture. Climate and culture were hypothesized to have both direct and moderating effects on posttraining behaviors. Accounting for pretraining behaviors and knowledge gained in training, the results from a series of LISREL analyses showed that both climate and culture were directly related to posttraining behaviors. In particular, the social support system appeared to play a central role in the transfer of training. Moderating effects were not found. Implications for enhancing the transfer of training are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)