Taking Measure of Work

1. Taking Measure of Work A Guide to Validated Scales for Organizational Research and Diagnosis Author: Dail L. Fields SYNOPSIS

2. Synopsis of the Following Chapters Chapter 1 – Job Satisfaction Chapter 2 – Organizational Commitment Chapter 3 – Job Characteristics Chapter 4 – Job Stress Chapter 5 – Job Roles Chapter 7 – Work-Family Conflict Chapter 8 – Person-Organization Fit Chapter 10 – Workplace Values

3. Job Satisfaction • Defined as an employee’s affective reactions to a job based on comparing actual outcomes with desired outcomes. • Employees expect their job to provide a mix of features (e.g., pay, promotion, autonomy for which the employee has certain preferential values.

4. Job Satisfaction (cont’d) • Measures of job satisfaction may assess global satisfaction with a job or satisfaction with key aspects of the job (e.g. pay, supervision, promotion). • Job satisfaction can be measured by using a series of surveys. • Extensive amounts of surveys are provided from pages 5 through 42.

5. Job Satisfaction (cont’d) • Recommended Surveys: • Overall Job Satisfaction (p. 5) • Job in General Scale (p. 9) • Overall Job Satisfaction (p. 11) • Job Satisfaction Survey (p. 14) • Job Perception Scale (p. 17) • Job Diagnostic Survey (p. 20)** • Index of Organizational Reactions (p. 35) (**highly recommended)

6. Organizational Commitment • Defined as an attitude or an orientation that links the identity of the person to the organization. • As such the goals of the organization and those of the individual become congruent. • An Employees liking for an organization is termed affective commitment—includes identification with and involvement in the organization.

7. Organizational Commitment (cont’d) • Three major issues: • the basis for the commitment (how does it form?) • The manifestation of the commitment (what is evidence of commitment—attitude or behavior?) • The focus of the commitment (what or who is the employee committed to?)

8. Organizational Commitment (cont’d) • Recommended Surveys: • Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (p. 46) • Affective, Normative, and Continuance Commitment (p. 51) • Organizational Commitment Scale (p. 59) • Career Commitment (p. 63) • Supervisor-Related Commitment

9. Job Characteristics • Job characteristics is driven by continuing efforts in organizations to determine the features of jobs that induce employees to work harder and perform better. • Job Characteristics Model (JCM) developed by Hackman and Oldham (1980) predicts that if a job is well designed, it can lead to higher levels of 3 critical psychological states. • Three states are: experienced meaningfulness; experienced responsibility; and knowledge of the results.

10. Job Characteristics (cont’d) • Five key characteristics of that JCM predicts are well designed: • Skill Variety – the extent to which a job requires the use of different skills and talents • Task identity – describes the extent to which a job involves completing a whole identifiable outcome • Task significance – the degree to which a job has impact on the lives of people in an organization or society in general

11. Job Characteristics (cont’d) • Autonomy – describes the extent to which a job provides the employee with discretion to choose how the work is done and to set the schedule for completing the work activities. • Job Feedback – indicates the extent to which carrying out the work activities provides the employee with clear information about his or her performance • JCM provides the framework from which to view the effects that job characteristics have on employee outcomes such as satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain with an organization (Hochwarter, Zellars, et al., 1999)

12. Job Characteristics (cont’d) • Recommended Surveys: • Job Diagnosis Survey, With Revisions (p. 71) *very extensive, developed by Hackman & Oldham (1974). • Job Characteristics Invetory (p. 76) • Multimethod Job Design Questionnaire (p. 78) *very extensive • Job Cognitions (p. 88) • Job Overload (p. 90) • Job Control, Cognitive Demand, and Production Responsibility (p. 96) • Perceived Organizational Support (p. 117) **List of surveys is extensive (pps 70-120)

13. Job Stress • Job stressors are defined as those aspects of a job that produce excessive and undesirable constraints or demands on the individual (Scheck, Kinicki, & Davy, 1995). • Two models have been used to describe the process by which aspects of a job and its environment lead to stress and strain. • One model focuses on fit between stressors. The second model is the Job Demands-Control Perspective (Karasek, 1979).

14. Job Stress (cont’d) • A major hypothesis of the Job Demands-Control Model is that high job demands produce a state of physical arousal in a worker. • When both demands and control are high, an individual will experience increased motivation to perform. • This model predicts that some job conditions may buffer the negative effectis of other job dimensions.

15. Job Stress (cont’d) • Both models indicate some variables such as social support from employees supervisor and co-workers may reduce effects of stressors. • Stress measurement has been criticized for having too much focus on identification and classification of job and work characteristics.

16. Job Stress (cont’d) • Recommended surveys: • Job-Related Tension Index (p. 124) • Burnout Measure (p. 126) • Work-Related Depression, Anxiety, and Irritation (p. 127) • Stress Diagnostic Survey (p. 129) *extensive survey • Job Stress Scale (p. 132) • Perceived Job Stressors (p. 137)

17. Job Roles • Most of the Research about job roles has focused on the role of conflict and ambiguity. • Every role in an organization should have a clear set of responsibilities so that management can provide appropriate guidance. • Clear job roles tend to increase employee feelings of competency…(Jackson & Schuler, 1985).

18. Job Roles (cont’d) • Role conflict is defined as incompatibility between the expectations of parties or between aspects of a single role. • It is possible that role conflict, ambiguity, and overload have direct effects on key employee outcomes. • In a meta-analysis conducted by Jackson and Schuler (1985), conflict, ambiguity, and overload affected organizational commitment.

19. Job Roles (cont’d) • Recommended surveys: • Role Conflict and Ambiguity (p. 147 & 149) • Role Overload (p. 153) • Cross-cultural Role Conflict, Ambiguity, and Overload (p. 154) • Job Role Ambiguity (p. 158) • Goal and Process Clarity (p. 160)

20. Work-Family Conflict • Balancing the demands of work and Family. • Defined as a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible. • Work-family conflict has been shown to affect employees’ well being and work-related attitudes (Aryee et al., 1998)

21. Work-Family Conflict (cont’d) • Studies have found varying degrees of strength in the relationship between work-family conflict and job and life satisfaction (Kossek & Ozeki, 1998) • Evidence also suggests that work and family conflicts should be measured separately for men and women. • Recent studies have found evidence that work-family conflict (work interfering with family) and family-work conflict (family interfering with work) are related but distinct constructs (Frone et al., 1992)

22. Work-Family Conflict (cont’d) • Recommended surveys: • Work Interference With Family and Family Interference With Work (p. 199) • Work-Family Conflict (p. 201) • Job-Family Role Strain Scale (p. 204) • Career-Family Attitudes (p. 206) *extensive survey • Control Over Areas of Work and Family (p. 215)

23. Person-Organization Fit (Culture Fit) • Person-organization fit refers to the degree of congruence or compatibility between the attributes of an organization member and those of the organization. • Person-organizational fit can be viewed as the match between the personality characteristics of an individual employee and organizational climate. • Attributes for individuals (employees) may include personality, traits, beliefs, values and interests.

24. Person-Organization Fit (cont’d) • Congruence occurs when a person supplements or matches with other individuals in an environment. • Value congruence is an important form of fit because organizational values are fundamental components of organizational culture that affect employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Chatman, 1989).

25. Person-Organization Fit (cont’d) • Measurement of person-organization fit depends on the ability to assess relevant aspects of the person and the organization (to determine the degree of match) • Techniques for measuring person-organization fit: • cross-level measurement • Individual employee perceptions (of their preferences and perceptions of org values) • Polynomial regression (Edwards and Van Harrison, 1993)

26. Person-Organization Fit (cont’d) • Recommended Surveys: • Organizational Culture Profile (p. 220) *extensive survey • Goal Congruence (p. 224) • Person-Organization Fit Scale (p. 225) • Perceived Person-Organization Fit (p. 227) *extensive survey • Perceived Ability-Job Fit (p. 233)

27. Workplace Values • Values (as applied within the workplace) can mean different things. • Values have been described as beliefs, needs, goals, criteria for choosing goals, criteria for choosing behaviors, and preferences (Dose, 1997; Froelich & Kottke, 1991). • Values may be comprised of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components.

28. Workplace Values (cont’d) • Relative to work values, studies have tended to focus on the following: • Vocational work values • Importance of various aspects of a job or organization • Preferences for the characteristics of a job • The extent to which individuals adhere to aspects of the Protestant work ethic (The key elements of the Protestant ethic were diligence, punctuality, deferment of gratification, and primacy of the work domain (Rose, 1985)).

29. Workplace Values (cont’d) • In general, business ideology and country culture are primary forces that may shape employee’s work-related values. • Different business ideologies are: • Convergence theory indicates that as nations embrace capitalism, their value systems will evolve toward the value systems established Western capitalistic economies.

30. Workplace Values (cont’d) • Divergence theory suggests that country culture drives values (even if a country adopts capitalism, the value system of the workforce will remain unchanged. • “Cross-vergence” – suggests that work ideology and country culture interact to create a new and unique value system that is based on the melding of both cultural and ideological influences (Talston, Holt, Terpstra, & Kai-cheng, 1995) • Major issue of measuring work-related values: • Extent to which responses about values may reflect the desire to appear as much like a socially desirable model

31. Workplace Values (cont’d) • Recommended surveys: • Value Attainment (p. 266) • Work Values Inventory (p. 268) • Protestant Work Ethic (p. 270) • Work Value Survey (p. 275) • Measure of Ethical Viewpoints (p. 278) • * extensive survey • Perceived Importance of Workplace Values (p. 284)