Showing papers on "Core self-evaluations published in 1991"

The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta-analysis

Abstract: This study investigated the relation of the “Big Five” personality dimensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled). Results indicated that one dimension of personality, Conscientiousness, showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupational groups. For the remaining personality dimensions, the estimated true score correlations varied by occupational group and criterion type. Extraversion was a valid predictor for two occupations involving social interaction, managers and sales (across criterion types). Also, both Openness to Experience and Extraversion were valid predictors of the training proficiency criterion (across occupations). Other personality dimensions were also found to be valid predictors for some occupations and some criterion types, but the magnitude of the estimated true score correlations was small (ρ < .10). Overall, the results illustrate the benefits of using the 5-factor model of personality to accumulate and communicate empirical findings. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in personnel psychology, especially in the subfields of personnel selection, training and development, and performance appraisal.

Organizational structure, context, and climate: Their relationships to job satisfaction at three managerial levels.

Abstract: Managers from 120 organizations (183 men and 27 women) from four major Canadian urban centers were surveyed about their job satisfaction. Seven aspects of job satisfaction were evaluated: satisfaction with the firm, pay, promotional opportunities, the job itself, other managers at the same level, immediate supervisor, and subordinates. Overall, managers at the highest level reported the most job satisfaction. For presidents, satisfaction was related to the organization's structure and context, as well as to its climate, whereas for middle managers and vice presidents, job satisfaction was related more frequently to the organization's climate and less frequently to its structure and context.

Situational shifts in sex role orientation : correlates of work satisfaction and burnout among women in special education

Abstract: A battery of instruments dealing with job stress and satisfaction and social role traits was administered to 78 female special educators. Social role orientation (instrumental, expressive, balanced, undifferentiated), as measured by a modified version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, was determined for each teacher. The relationship between social role orientation and job stress and satisfaction was examined. Shifts in teachers' social role composition from off the job to on the job were examined regarding four indices of stress and satisfaction. A balanced social role orientation on the job was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of job stress. Higher levels of instrumentality on the job and off the job and higher levels of expressivity on the job and off the job were associated with higher levels of personal accomplishment and lower levels of depersonalization.

Job-Related Threats to Control Among Older Employees

Abstract: This study investigated those aspects of the work experience of middle-aged and preretirement-aged adults in which personal control is most likely to be threatened, and it identified related problems in performance, job satisfaction, and adjustment. Four dimensions of work experience emerged as sources of threat to personal control: Workload Demands, Limited Growth Opportunity, Personal/Family Crises, and Working Conditions. Diminished control in these areas was associated with increased job stress, generalized stress, depression, injuries on the job, and absenteeism, as well as with decreased job involvement, lower job satisfaction, and disrupted performance. In contrast to popular stereotypes, older workers actually exhibited fewer control concerns and less job stress, and greater job involvement and job satisfaction. Work-specific control problems were related to generalized control beliefs only among the younger age group.

The Dispositional Approach to Job Satisfaction: Trait or State?

Abstract: Job satisfaction has been one of the most extensively researched areas of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Although situational influences on job satisfaction have traditionally been the primary focus of research, staw and Ross (1985) asserted that job satisfaction may be determined as much by personal dispositions as situational factors. Specifically, they proposed that an individual's predisposition toward optimism or pessimism is a critical determinant of job satisfaction. However, subsequent empirical investigations purporting to test the influence of the trait-like predisposition of optimism/pessimism have employed measures of positive and negative affective states. This study attempted to disentangle the influence of temporary negative and positive affective states from optimistic/pessimistic predispositional traits, on levels of job satisfaction. It was predicted that a stable optimistic/pessimistic predispositional trait would be a stronger predictor of subsequent job satisfaction than temporary positive and negative affective states. Subjects were 9 30 employees of a large government agency in the Midwest. The results of regression analyses provided evidence that positive affect was a better predictor of job satisfaction than optimism. Negative affect did not contribute to levels of job satisfaction.

Racial Differences on Job Analysis Questionnaires: An Empirical Study

Abstract: Selection measures that are content-validated may be biased if the job content domain, as defined by a job analysis, is dependent on the characteristics of the people who hold the job or who complete the job analysis ratings. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship may exist between race and job analysis ratings. Clerical workers employed by state government agencies completed job analysis questionnaires on their own jobs and their co-workers' jobs. The workers evaluated job tasks which belongs to three content domains. lob content for the clerical job was related to race, such that the relative ratings of the three job domains for the black incumbents who had black coworkers differed from those for the other three racial groups - black incumbents who had white coworkers, white incumbents who had white coworkers, and white incumbents who had black coworkers. It was argued that these differences represented actual job differences. Under these conditions, a job analyst should not define different job titles for different racial groups, but attempt to understand why the differences exist. Through such analyses and evaluation of results, bias in application of the job analysis data, such as defining the content domain of selection measures, can be avoided. Guion (1978) noted that tests developed from content domain samples of jobs are likely to be viewed as unbaised. An assumption underlying this belief is that "The job content domain is independent of the characteristics of the people who hold the job" (Guion, 1978, p. 502). He suggested two conditions under which this assumption may be violated. (a) The tasks and duties associated with a job may differ for various groups of job incumbents. For example, task differences might occur as a result of an affirmative action program. In order to be in compliance with an affirmative action program, an employer may have minority and majority group members occupy jobs with the same job title, but with different job duties. (b) Job duties may not differ for distinct groups of incumbents, but the stylistic approaches the groups take to perform the job may differ. If members of a minority group are socially isolated on a job, they might develop a stylistic approach that differs from the one used by the majority group members. When stylistic approaches to a job differ across groups, bias might be minimized by using task-oriented rather than worker-oriented job analysis to define job content because task-oriented job analysis focuses on the work performed on the job, the end products of these activities, and the equipment and/or reference materials used to accomplish the activities rather than on the workers who perform it (Miller, 1962). Regardless of how the job content-incumbent independence assumption is violated, if a job analysis assesses the aspects of the jobs on which the groups differ and only one group is sampled, the test based on this job analysis will be biased. It should be noted that bias occurs when an application of a technique results in some negative consequence to a group of individuals. Consequently, if the independence assumption is violated, it is not the job analysis that should be considered bias, but the applications based on the job analysis, such as using a test for selection purposes. From the above discussion, a corollary to Guion's assumption is proposed: a test may be biased if the perceived job content domain on which it is based is dependent on the characteristics of the people who assess the job, even if all incumbents perform the job identically. In other words, if two groups of incumbents complete a job analysis questionnaire differently (regardless of the content of the jobs held by the two groups), a test based solely on one group's job analysis data will be biased. The degree of test bias would be directly related to the degree that the groups differ on the job analysis questionnaire and the extent that any one group is overrepresented or underrepresented in the job-analysis sample. …