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Journal uf Applied Prycholufiy

1965, Vo!. 49, No. 1, 24 33

Graduate School of Business and Public ilrli~zii~istraliolz,


Cornell liaziversiiy

Job involvement is tile degree to wliiclr a person is itlentifietl pv;ycliologicaliy


with his work, or the importance of work in his total self-image. Very little is
presently known about this class of job attitudes, although speculations almui.
it are implicit in mucli ol the work on industrial motivation, especj:llly th:it
which deals with "participation." The purpose oE the present research .rv;is to
define job involvement, develop a scale for measuring it, gather evidence on
the reliability and validity of the scale, and lo learn something about the
nature of job involvement. through its correlation with other job att.ituclcs. This
paper describes the tlcvelopmcnt. and validation of a scale measuring job
involvement; the resulting scales are presented, and the relation between job
involvement and other job atlitudes is discussed,

The process of ego involvemerit in worlr thought. These activities and thoughtways, in turn,
has been a concern of both psychologists, have their origins, for any given person, in social
cxpcrience [Duhin, 1061, pp. 51 52 1.
such as McGregor (1941) and Allport (l947),
and sociologists, such as Hughes ( 1958) and Job involvement i s tho interrlalization of
Dubin (1958, 196 1) . The psychologkts have vn111cs abont the goodn~ss of work or the
tended to focus on organizational coi~ditlol~simportance of work in the worth of the parson,
that lead to job involvement: such as mean- ant1 IWI h ; q ~ sit thus mc:Lsizra.s the ease with
ingfulness of work, adequacy of s~lpervision, which the pcrson can tw further sociakwd by
etc. The sociologists have been more con- an org:uimiion. Dubin ( 1961) goes on to
cerned with aspects of the socialization process
point ont that,
that lead to the incorporation in the person
of work-relevant norms and values. Dubin, I n the work orp;anization ibc adult learns the mo-
for instance, holds that psycholoqical (i.e., tivation system that is sperific l o that ini;litutional
derived-drive) theories of motivation are not setting. There is re:tl continuity 1,el.wecn childhood
exlwicnces in (he society and adult exlwieilces in
adequate to explain organizational behavior the work organization. The work organimtion Build?
because thev do not account for wide varia- its n~otivatiolznl systems on sociclal lound;itions.
tions in modes of drive satisfaction, and What happen.; at work, however, is that these social
modes of drive reduction can be changed. Tn moiiv:ttion pattcri~s arc made mom specific. They
order to account Tor the ways in which nm- are ;also made more appropriate lo the worlr per-
tivation is channeled, we must turn to soci;il fol-mcd [ p . 53 1.
norins and values which detern~ine (ant1 in 'llhe relevance oC social norms and value.;
the long run are changed by) specific modes to thc andcrsisnding of indris!rial nmlivation
of behavior. The social structure, then, chan- is clear, but they h:ive largc.ly hccn ignored
nels and sustains motivation in specific ways.
in tha. study ol job attitwle? until now. M i ~ h
When a person intein,ili/cs a value, nolnl, goal, or 1-cscarch nwds to ha> donc on the ways in
behavior pattern, these herome guitlci lor f a t u ~ e
activity. Internali7alion means acceptaucc inlo the
i v h k h soa ial-system variab1i.s iirfl~rence anti
personal b t h v i c r qy5tems, and way5 of thinking Jt cllw~ncl individrial i-riotivation 111 ol.g:mi,za-
means, literally, putting inside the soci'tl po sonalily, tion(<heforc a f n U ~ ~t ~r ~ ~ ( l ~ r : ~ i : ~ ~of: c !organ-
i~~i;
modes of activities and thoughtwdy\ I11c.y bc-
come, in the iutr~re, the basis fol I)ch,~vior and
i XI tkF1:ll ~ ) ~ ~ ~ l : lcan
v i o bc
l r P : ~ c h l .7'11~
~ ~1~e
sflidv wii d <.ignetl a i a (trp in tknt r i i r r c t i o i l
1 This research was supporled by f u ~ ~ dfroms the - -lo provitk olle instrumml for sl ich re-21 c'n
Ford Foundatioii administered by the Graduate
School of Busincss and Public Administration, 7 ' 1 ~a1tl)iianlivc results obtained so I;tr
Cornell University. reasonably cncoiiraging.
happy with his job; in fact, very angry people
For this work, job involvement was de- may be just as involved in their jobs as very
fined as the degree to which a person's work happy onrs.
Ixrformance affects his self-esteem. Elsewhere Previous Research
(T,odahl, 1964) it was hypothesized that its
main determinant is a value-orientation to- 'The literature on job involvement is sparse.
ward worli that is learned early in the social- Wicliert ( 1951) found that telephone oper-
ization process. I n some ways it opera- ators and scrvice representatives who had
tionalizcs the "l'rotestant ethic" and because q ~ r i twcre less ego involved in their work
it ib; a result of the introjection of certain than those who were on force: the on-force
valucs ahout work into the self, it is probably personnel tended to feel that they had a
rciistant t o changcs i11 the pelson due to the chance to makc decisions on the job, and
nature of a particular joh. that their contribution to the success of the
company was "very important," "quite im-
thers have recognized job involvement
and called it hy other names, but defined the portant," or of "fair importance." 01 course,
it is not possible to say when the disinvolve-
concept very similarly. In Allport's (1941)
treatm~ntof the psychology of participation, ment of those who quit took place, since the
questionnaire was administered sometime after
?go involvement was defined as thc situation
they left; perhaps they were never involved
in which the perwn "engages the status-
seeking motive" in his work. (The person is a t all or, as seems more likely, they clisin-
of course scclting self-esteem as well as that
volvetl themselves after leaving the company.
of others.) For French and Kahn (1962),
In a srries of careful laboratory experi-
ments, Lewis (1944) and Lewis and Franlrlin
fhe centrality of a n ability is the degree to
(1944) used the Zeigarnili effect to establish
which it affects self-esteem; if job perform-
conditions under which eqo involvement in
ance is central to the worlier, then we have
work took place. T o summarize, they found
"ego-involved performance." They remark
that people do become ego involved in work,
that "this implies that his job performance
even in laboratory tasks; that under '"go-
will dCect his self-esteem Ip. 191." One of
involvinq" instructions, recall favors the coin-
Gnion9q (1958) definitions of morale is relr-
pleted (i.e., successful) tasks; and that people
vanf to job involvement.
working in a group of interdependent taslts
Morale is eqo involvelnrnt in onr's jot) . . . . There show the same tension systems as those worli-
ia something to be said for the attitudinal frame of ing alone, i.e., that people also become ego
reference in which a man perceives his job to be so involved in a group task.
important to himself, to his company, and to
w c i e t y that his superiors' "Lblundrrs" are not to be In his study of the "central life interests"
tolerated [ p ~601. of worliers, Dubin (1955) used a 40-item
questionnaire to sample total life experiences;
These definitions have a common core of the form oC thc questionnaire aTlowed workers
meaning in that they describe the job-involved to choose a job-oriented, non-job-oriented, or
person as one for whom work is a very im- an indifferent response. Over all 40 items,
portant part of life, and as one who is affected Ilubin found that only 24% of the leipond-
very much personally by his whole job situa- ents could be classed as "job oriented" (i.e.,
tion: the work itself, his co-worlters, the those who chose a work-rclatsd response on
company, etc. On the other hand, the non-jo1)- at least half the cluestions or whose answers
il~olvetlworker does his living off the job. were at least 70%) jol) oriented and indiffer-
Work is not as important a part of his psy- ent). Only 9% of Dubin's workers found their
choioqicaI IiCe. His interests are elsewhere, most significant informal ~ O U Pexperience-,
arid the core of his self-i~nagr,thc essential in worli, I Ei>h gave work as t h most ~ common
Part of his identity, is riot greatly affccted by source of pleasure and satiifaction, and 61%
th kind of worli he does or how well he gave job-oriented responsrls on 7 items dealing
does it. It is important to note, with Guion, with formal organization life. Dubin con-
that the jobinvolved worlier is not necessarily cludes that it is not surprising that only 2421
of workers are job oriented and the rest torially independent of other job attitudes,
exhibit only "adequate" social behavior, relatively stable over time, relatively un-
given the organizational conditions under affected by changes in the work organization.
which most people work. Unfortunately he and related to the social nearness of other
gives no differential data allowing correlation workers (for what reason is not yet clear).
of job orientation with skill level, age, cis. We cannot be sure how far these conclvsions
I n previous unpublished research, Imlahl will generalize, however. They are based on
used rating methods to determine job involve- interview material not specifically collected
ment from interview protocols. Data on 21 for the purpose of studying job involvement,
job attitudes obtained on women in preci3ion and the res~dtsof interview studies have becv
electronics assembly work were intercorrclated known to differ from tlrese employing quea-
and factor analyzed : job involvement emerged tionnaircs (cf. Ash, 1954; Rerrien & ihngofl
as a separate factor, related only to team 1960). For these reasons i t seemed desirable
involvement, product linowledge, and time on to construct an attitude scale for measuring
job. Variables dealing with satisfaction, mo- job involvement, anrl to relate it to other
tivation, and frustr ation were Eartnrially in- dirertly measured job attitude scorr.9.
dependent of job involvement. I t was also
found in thi? study that while interrater
agreement on job involvement mas low, it
nevertheless appeared to be the most stable Initial Item Selection and Redz~rtion
of the 2 1 attitude variables over a 20-month The scale discrimination irchnicjue of I<(!-
period. This suggested that job involvernei~t wards and ICilpatriclc (1948) was followed in
was relatively unaPfected by changes in the constructing the scale. Initially 110 slalc-
work environment, since clllring the 20-nronth rnents potentially related to job involvement
period many "improvements" were made in were collected from interview protocols, e.;i\t-
the jobs and in the organization irn~nediately ing questionnaires, othcr researchers,' or w3re
surrounding the operators. merely invcntcd. Elimination of duplications,
Using the same attititde data and acjtling etc.. reduced the list to 87 items, which rvrlc
technological variables, IIearn (1962) foiind then prepared for submission to judges. The
that job involvemcnt was related to the per- judging booklet inclurlrcl a face sheet givin:;
ceptual skill required o i these women. TIe clefinitions antl examples of job invoIvemmt
also found that team operators were more The instructions to the judges were a.;
job involved than people working aloi~e,but follows:
he ascribed this to the greater perceptual skill
The following item$ ale comments peoplr have ma(
required on teams. Since these variables are or might makc about their wo1k We would
tied together, it is impossible to untangle tbe to judge each statement as to thc n ' q r e e o
causal sequence in this instance. involvrnzmt it rxpresiec by titding the :lpp
The same contcnt-analysis rnc~ihotls were tLumber 1,elow edch one On tlii.; s c ~ l r ,a "
used in a sttrtly of auto assembly-line workers rewnts a very low dcgrec of joh involvem
"11" ~epleseritsvery high job involvement, antl '
in which Loclahl (1964) again found that r c p r c w ~ t sa medium degree of job involvrment
job involvement emerged as an independtmt
attitude factor, this time with the variables The items were then snlmittetl to "exput"
p r o d ~ c tinvolvement, company involvement, judges: I 1 psyc1iolo:;iit s, 3 socioiogiits, antl
and number of men working near loaded on 8 second-year graduate \ti~tlc:ltsi n a course i n
the invdvement factor. Social variables thu? human relation.;. hle;nu\, rnetliani, shand;t~tl
appcar in the factorial composition of job in- tlrviations, and Q valuci ol h i r rating5 were
volvement in both samples, hir~fing s t the cdculated for each of the 87 items. F o r t y
sociocultural origin of this attitirdc and ~intler- w v w ~items were cliscartti~tlrlsinq thrsc stali6-
scoring the importance of work groups in tits: the 40 items retained had low Q valuci
maintaining stable orientation? toward work. -- --
Summarizing the results of these interview "he authors wish especially to thank 1,awrence
studies, job involvcmrnt appears to be fac- R Williams for his help in conitructirrg items.
al~dtended to have medians more toward the and seventh factors have substantially zero
ends of the distribution. loadings on total job-involvement score).
A Likert-type item analysis was then per- Factor 1
formed. The 40 items were cast into the . 7 l I used to care a lot about my work, but now
1,ikert format, with four categories of response other things ale more important to me.
(strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly dis- 64 I used to be more ambitious about my work
agree; scored 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively). than I am now.
'The items were put in random order and 5 7 1 avoid taking on c x t ~ aduties and rcsponsi-
administered to 137 nursing personnel (the bilities in my work.
SO Quite often I feel lilre staying home froin
entire staff except for those on leave, etc.) work instead of coming in.
in a large general hospitaL3 Total scores
.summed over the 40 items were obtained for These items (and the others on the factor)
each person, and the data from the 40 items have a hopeless quality, as if the person who
plus the total job-involvement score were endorses them has givcn up caring nmch about
intercorrelated and factor analyzed." l'roduct- work. They remind ns of the "indifferent"
moment correlation coefficients were factored response to work described by Dubin (1955)
by the method of principal axes, using unities and I'resthus (1962). 'This response might be
in tire diagonal,%nd the results were rotated made by a person who originally had great
using Kaiser's varimax criterion (see Harman, expectations about work; when these are
1960). blunted, the first reaction is alienation which
A general factor accounting for 22% of then hardens into indifference and work bc-
the obtained comrnunality emerged in the comes a mere instrumentality for other
unrotated solution. The total job-involvement pleasures.
score had a loading of .96 on this general
Factor 2
factor, accounting for about 917h of its
--.62 Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking
variance. Altogether, 11 factors with eigen- ahead to the next clay's walk.
va~lucsover 1.00 were obtained, but only the -.62 The most important things that happen to
first 7 of these had loadings greater than .30 me involve my work.
on more than two variables. These 7 ac- -.<$ I live, eat, and bleathe my job.
counted for 77741 of the obtained com- - .51 1 feel deprc+ed when I fail a t something
munality. Accorilingly, the f m t 7 factors were connec l e d with my job.
rotated separately, as well as all 11. The 7-
factor rotation was yomewhat easier to inter- Thcsc items all express very high job involve-
pret, and the results from it will be sum- ment, perhaps higher than the individual is
marized here. normally permitted to express in our culture.
In the followinq lists of variables, a positive Yet they are extremely important in discrimi-
loading means a g w e m m t zaith the itern.TThe nating among degrees of job involvement:
items with the four highest loadings will be total job-involvement score was loaded highcst
Presented for the first five fartors (the sixth on this factor in the rotated matrix.
--- Factor 3
"he authors wish to thank Ruth Anderson, who
collected these data as part of a larger study of 67 1'11 stay overtime to finish a job, even if
nursing atliturles. I'm not paid for it.
A11 computations were carlied out a t the Corneil .63 For me, mornings at work really fly by.
Computing Center. - .58 How well I woik does not arfect thr way I
"1 the time of the computations the only avail- feel about myself.
ahk program for principal components factor analyG. 5 1 Sometimes I'd like to kick myscll To1 the
allowed only unities in the diagonal; thuq the com- mi.;takes I make in my work
munality estimate5 arc probably inflated.
6Allhough the xale was sco~ed so that A low 'l'hese items have high Fface validity for the
sCol(' indicated high involvemcnt, sign.., of all cor- concept of job involvemcmt. They clearly ex-
'elation coefficient^ are here reversed to simplify in-
terpretation. The means of Table 2, however, arc press high involvement and a high sense ol'
Presented as originally scored. duty toward work.
Factor 4 The items were then reordered and admin-
- .68 1 usually show u p f o ~work a little early, to istered to a group of engineers working in an
get things ready. advanced development laboratory ' as part ol
.56 I'm late for work pretty often. a larger attitude questionnaire which was
.43 I'm almost sure to think about unfinished
work problems at home. distributed by the company and wac; returned
.42 Quite often I frrl like staying home from by mail to t11c authors by each indiviclual.
work instead o E coming in. Response to the survey was 69gj; control
data available on the entire population of
These items seem to deal with tendencies to engineers indicated minor distortion in the
avoid coming to work and with guilt over un- returns in the direction of greater participa-
finished work. They seem like a negative kind tion from those in higher positbn levels and
of involvement: feeling badly about poor per- from older n~en.Chi-square tests showed that
formance on the job, one way of caring the distortions were not significant, however.
about it. I n order to compare thc engiriecrs' and
Factor 5
nurses' data, the final 20 itenis wire rescoreil
.73 I enjoy discussing my work with people out-
for the nurscs. 7'hc corrdal ion lxtvvccrl tl~c.
side the company. original 40-item total and the finail 20-item
.72 1 like to talk about my work with my friends. total was ,88;since this is ail uncorsccteci
.49 P prefer a job where 1 can put my own ideas part-whole correlation, it intikale? a fair
to work. amount of loss in the item reduction. Data
.44 I would like a chance to make important from the 20 ilems plus the 20-item total job-
decisions on my job.
involvement score for both the nurses and
This factor seems to deal with pride in the the engineers were itnterco~relntedand factor
organization, general ambition, and upward- analyzed, wing the same procedures as above.
mobility desires. I t seems to come fairly close Examination of the correlation matrices re-
to the notion of "participation" as advanced vealed low interitern correlations (averaging
by Allport ( 1947) and Wicltert's ( 195 1 ) about .17) and relativdy high item-total cor-
delinition of "'ego involvement." relations. The result of this was that, in both
The loadings of total job-involvement score analyses, most of the variance in total job-
for Factors 1-5 respectively were: 1, -.43; involvement score appeared on the first (un-
2, --.58; 3, .38; 4, -.37, and 5, -36. Together, rotated) principal axis. For the nurses, the
these loadings account for 92% of the vari- loading of the total score on the first factor
ance in the total job-involvement score. Con- was .99, and for the enginec~s, .9G. These
sidering that the sample of items is fairly loadings indicate the presence of a general
broad and that all but 8% of the variance in job-involvement factor over tile 20 items,
total involvement score is accormted for, these which is, of course, to be expected. For the
could be considered '(dimensions" of job in- nurses, however, only X of the items laad tlic41
volvement for nursing personnel. The question highest loatliq on this general factor, and for
then arises as to the generality of these dimen- the engineers, only 11. Six of the items had
sions in different populations. highest loadings on the first principal axis
in both samples, and thesc werr lormcd into
Furtkcr Item Reduction and Cross-Validation a short version of the scale, descrihcd below.
Since other items had shown substantial
The set of items was reduccd to 20 by con- item-total corrc'lations, howcver, the rotated
sidering the item-total correlations, the com- factor matrices were euamitrcd. I n both
munality of an item, and the factorial clarity samples four factors were extracted and
ol the item. At the collclusion of this process, rotated to the varimax criterion. For the
the 20 items included 6 each from Factors nurses, three intcrpretal)le factors emerged
I and 2, 5 from 3, and 3 from Factor 4.
(None were included from Factor 5 because
",.Ihe authols mi\h to t l ~ ~ ~the
I
--
n l , rc\pontlcntl;, who
pa~ticipntctf in the sulvry on thcir own time, and t o
these items had substantially lower item-total thank Frank Overstlorn for his help in ~oo~tlinating
correlations.) the project.
Nur se5"

1. I ' l l slay overt itlie l o finish a job,


cvcri if 1'111 no( paicl for it.
2. You cnn rneasure a person pretty
~yc111)v IIOLV
good a job he tloes.
3. 'l'lrix nlajol- s;~lisfaciionin my life
cotncs from rrry jol).
4. 1:or. iirc, niornings ; ~ work
t really fly
11~.
5. 1 r~srmllysllow u p lor work a. lililc
early, l o get tl~iilgsrcatly.
6. 'I'hc 1i1ost imporia~llthings that
Ilappen t o r11c involve m y ~vorlc.
7. Sonrctilnes 1 lie awa.ltc a t night think-
ing aheatl t o llie liest t h y ' s wor.k.
4. I'm r.c:~llp:L ~ ~ c r l eionist
ct :~l)outmy
work.
0. I fcel dcprcssctl when I E.31 '1 at sorrlc~
tiring c o n n e c t d with my job.
10. 1 have d h e u activities more inqx)r.t;inl
Illan my work.
11. 1 live, eat, ant1 l)rc;ttl~emy jol).
12. 1 \voultl prolx~blyk t y working even
if I didn't ncctl tbc ~noney.
13. Quitc often I feel like slaying home
from work i11slc;~tlof conring in.
14. 'i'o me, my work is only a. sln:~lljmrl
of who 1 :],in.
I nin very ~ n x irivolvetl
h personally
illrciy work.
16. 1 ;~voi:l l : ~ h i t ~on g ca!r.:t t1utic:s arlrl
~ ~ i p o n s l l ~ i l i tin
i c sm y worli.
17. 1 uxtl lo 11e more ~~rr!l~itious
almul
than l :m now.
my wt1r1~
18. hlosl things in life :Ire more imporl:~nl
l l m work.
1'). 1 used lo carc more ;~l)outmy nark,
h l now other things arc more inl-
port m t l o me.
20.Sorrictinics I'd like t o kick tuysclf for
tllc ~nist:~lccs1 make in my worli.
21. 'l'otal jol, involvcmcnt score (sutniiict.1
over ; i l l 2 0 iicirlc;)
Reliability and Validity
Reliability. The split-half reliability of th
20-item scale was computecl by calculat
product-moment correlation coefficients
tween halves of the scale, using odd-eve
items as the split. Table 2 shows means
Nurses (N=137) 43.37 6.5% 56 .72
Engineers ( N =70) 42.62 7.83 7 .XO
standard deviations, and split-half correl
Studcnts (N =46) 48.06 9.56 .80 39 tions for the nurses, engineers, and for
group of second-year graduate business-a
Note.-High score indicate? lower involvemrnt. ministration students who were asked to re
spond to the items as regards the "job7'
(the fourth was a doublet) and for the students. Split-half correlations were correc
engineers, four. These are presented in by means of the Spearman-Brown formu
Reliability of the 20-item scale is adequat
Table 1.
but not extremely high. Possibly there is som
The first two factors appear rather similar
effect of "hiding" the 20-item scale among th
in the two sanlples, except that the secoid 40 items for the nurses, but this was no
and third factors have opposite patterns of operating for the engineers or for the stu
signs for the engineers. (Loadings greater I t must be concluded that iob involv
than .40 were considered in interpreting fac- is not a very internally consistent attitude but
tors.) Factor 1 in these two samples is the perhaps this is reasonable in light of its
same as Factor 2 in the analysis of the 40-item multidimensionality and the low interitem
scale: nonacceptance of items expressing very correlations.
high job involvement. As in the earlier anal- In an attempt to shorten the job-involve-
ysis, this factor has the highest correlation rnent scale for use in space-cramped large
with total job-involvement score. Factor 2 in questionnaires, the 6 items loading highest on
the present analysis is the same as Factor 1 the first (unrotated) principal component in
in the 40-item analysis: the indifferent re- both samples were rescored as a single scale
sponse to work. For the nurses, the third for both the engineers and nurses sample:
factor is the same as before: duty-bound posi- these were items 3, 6, 8, 11, IS, and 18 of
tive job involvement, a kind of arbeitsfreude. Table 1. The split-half correlation (based on
For the engineers, Factor 3 is opposite in sign odd- versus even-numbered items) was .57;
to Factor 3 for the nurses, but seeins to corrected with the Spearman-Brown formula
deal with the same kind of content: it is a the reliability of the 6-item scale is estimatetl
rejection of extra duties and of the general at .73. The correlation between the 6-iterr
notion of work as a measure of self ("you can total and the 20-item total is .87. With aboul
measure a person pretty well by how good a 76% of the variance in the 20-item tota
job he does"). Factor 4 for the en&' meers accounted for in the 6 items, it would seen
seems to deal with boredom and the general reasonable to substitute the 6-item scale whe
unimportance of work. space is a t a premium.
Considering the similarity of factorial Validity. One evidence of valid
structure across these two samples it seems degree to which a measure dis
reasonable to conclude that job involvement, among groups. Analysis of variance
as measured by these 20 items, is multi-
dimensional and probably has a t least three
dimensions. The fact that the 20-item set used (F = 4.84, p < .01). The student
is niultidimensional indicates that it would
not be advisable to attempt measuring job
involvement with a single Guttman scale,
although three might do fairly well. Since the
aim of this research was a single scale, the collected, and the instructor had remarked
scalogram analysis mas not carried out for that his policy was to give low marks in all
these data. but the final. Considering this and the fact
that this was their final semester in a graduate previously described, and scored on Ghi-
pN"essional school, i t is not too surprising to selli's empirically constructed scales for
[lntl their i m w h c n ~ e n tas students lower than intelligence, supervisory qualities, initiatiw,
that of engineers or nurses, who w t w already self-awurance, occupational level, a i d dc-
elr~barkcdon their life careers. cision making approach. Using the 20-item
i\nothcr kind of evidence for the validity total job-involvement scorv, the only sig-
of a scale i:,its correlation with other (prefer- nificant correlation was betwren job involve-
ably well-understood) variables. Four sets of ment arid supervisory qualities (the coefficient
data were available with which to assess the was 31, p < .05). Two otliers approach sig-
relation of job involvement to other variables: nificance ( p < . l o ) : initiative and intelligence
nursing personnel, head nurses, students, and Apparently the job-involved person is t1w
engineers. sort who makes a good supervisor (as scwl
For the 137 nursing perso~mel,coi~sistingof by his superiors), and who may I)e higher in
hmd nurses, staff nurses (liNs), practical initiative antl intelligence than others.
nurses, nurse aides, and ortlerlies, total job- 'The final evidence on validity of the job-
i~~volve~ncnt scores were correlated with years involvement scale comes from the sample of
of college, years of experieiice, part time or engineers. Fifty variables w i e scored from
full time, job status (six levels from head the survey questionnaire. These variable.: d ~ a l t
nurse to o r d e ~ l y ) ,age, antl marital status. with the technological nature of the work
The only signiGcaat correlation was between itself (its variety, respondility, etc.) , job
jolj-involvement score and age, .26, p < .01. satisfaction as measured by Smith's new Job
The older nursing personnel teritl to be more I)cscription Index ( J D I ) (Mendall, Smith,
job ir~volvecl. H u h , & Loc-kr, 1963), interferences and frus-
Anderson (1964) obtained data on a trations in work, perceived technical pro-
variclty of measures for 25 head nurses iir a f i ~ i m c yof self aud others, performance as
largc genrsal hospital, Amorig t h i w was an ineasurrd by data on percentage salary in-
"activity preference scaie" consistillq of triatls creases, and demographic data on tducation
of items on activities of the head nurse, which (self, father, and mother), aqe, position level,
~neawred the hrad nurse's prdr~rence for marital status, and where the person went to
actual nursing care activities (LC., taking tale high school, among others. These variables
of patients herself), for personnel activitks wcre intercorrelated and factor analyzed.
(such as training her nurses, giving tlircctioni, The 20-item job-involvrmrnt score was cor-
etc), and for external coordinating activities related with 2 of the 13 job variables: the
(chbcItinS sckmhlies with participating doctors, number of people contactetl per day in the
etc.). h d e r s o n also obtained data on thc job (.30) and thc interdepandence of the jol)
Ohio State Leader Behavior llcscription
(nccc3siity for working clowly with otheri)
tionnaire (1,HDQ) measuring "consideration"
( 3 4 ) are hot11 aw~ciatetlwith high involvc-
and "'iilitiating structure" factors in head
merit, a t the .O1 levcd. Four of the five satii-
llurse behavior as seen by her subordinates.
Tising the 40-item total job-involvei~~ent score, faction v a r / d A ~ sare a~sociatcdwith high joh
h l c r s o n found that jol) involvenwit wa.; involvement: satisfaction with the work itself
associated negatively with preference for (.29), promotion (.38), s~lpcrvision (.38),
nuisinq care activities, positively with prefci- a r d people ( 3 7 ) . High involvement was also
r n for ~ coortlinatinq aciiviticls, and negatived) ;tssaciatetl with the perccivrtl trchnicd pro-
with the c onsideration scale on the LBIIQ. It ficiency of tlic supervisor (.29) and with
wo~ilt1appear that job ilivolveilnent i5 m 1 1 it perccxivccl ~harrces of g e t h i g two or morc
trait o f the "friendly hclper" sort of heat1 fi~tzlrcpromotions ( 3 4 ) . Finally, on a "scalc"
nurse, who is highly considcrate and moit for location of high school attended which
elljoys actual care of patients; rather it is a rims east-sorrth-midwest-west, people froin
of those head nurses who libc east a d south are less job-involvcd thail
coordinating and administrative activities. others. The correlation coeificient is only 2.5,
Gkriselli's Sclf-Description Iilvcntory (1954) however, and the respontlents thems~lves
was administered to the student sample decided the definitions of location: it would
probably be a mistake to attach much import son, we find that highly job-involved peol
to this relationship. (a) are older (nursing personnel) ; (6)
In the factor analysis, 12 factors were ex- less considerate as leaders, arid prefer
ttactcd from the SO-variable matrix, and ministrative or coordinating activities to n
varirnax rotations were performed for 12, 7, ing care activities (head nurses) ; (c) descri
and 5 factors. Later, the matrix was reduced themselves the same way as good superviso
to 36 variables by eliminating some over- do, and score higher on initiative and inte
lapping variables. Again, 12 factors were ex- ligencr (students); ( d ) have more high
tracted and rotations were done for 12, 7, interdependent (team-type) jobs, see mo
and 5 factors. In every one of these rota- people during the day, are more satisfied wi
tions, the 20-item total job-involvement score their work itself, their promotional opportun
appeared with its highest loading on the same ties, their supervisor and fellow workers,
factor as the job-satisfaction variables. Con- their supervisor is technically proficient
sidering these results and the zero-order cor- that they have a good chance of getting two
relations of job involvement with the satis- more promotions, and went to high scho
faction variables, it must be concluded that elsewhere than in the East (engineers).
for these engineers, job involvement has good deal of ambition, upward mohilit
roughly the same factorial content as job and generrtl social motivation seems to ru
satisfaction. In the 12- and 7-factor rotations, through this description, recalling Allpor
the second highest loading for job involvement (1947) description of the ego-involved per
was on a factor termed "success," which had as ". . . engaging the status-seeking moti
other high loadings on total recent salary in worlc. In fact, Allport predicted the prese
increa?es, years in college, and low age, Still, results rather well when he wrote that "wh
these factor loadings account for only about the individual is busily engaged in using
30% of the variance in job involvement. I t talents, understanding his work, and hav
would not be justified to conclude from these pleasant social relations with forernan a
findings that job involveinent is the same as fellow worker, then he is, as the saying go
job satisfaction, although for these en&'meers '"identified' with his job." Allport goes
they appear to have some of the same to point out that the most intlispensa
determinants. condition for this is 'Yrieridly, unaffectc
social relations Ip. 1231." Clearly, the ir
volved engineer here feels he has a go(
The main findings of this study are as chance for promotion and likes his jo
follows: (a) job involvement is a multi- fellow worbers, and supervisor; be see
dimensional attitude that can be scaled with "organizationally involved" as well as j
adequate, but not high reliability; ( b ) the involved.
scale items seem to be general over different But if job iiwolvement is a readiness
populations, in that roughly the same faclorial be jutlgctl hy one's worlc, imparted duri
structure appeared in groups of engineers and the socialization process, then why should
nurses; ( r ) the scale tiiscriminates among and arganizational involvement be associat
groups and has plausible correlations with One possible answer is that the work is jud
other variables; ( d ) the 20-itsm scale de- by the organization; that is, it sets the nor
veloped here has about the same factorial con- for what is good work. If the criteria used
tent as job satisfaction for a group of engi- fuzzy and thc person is kept drpendent
neers. well-nneaning but arbitrary judgments f
I t would be premature to attempt to accourit superiors about his work, perhaps he nee
for all of these findings, since obviortsly more to identify with them (and the organizatio~
data are needed, especially from lower-status in order to validate himself. The alternativ
occupations. However, some speculations on oE course, is to protect himself from this to1
the nature of iob involvement can be made flict by turning to '$rofessional'htanda
from the data now available. not determined by the organization. h o t
Combining these data to make a composite possible answer is that the person who is
profile of the hypothetical job-involved per- involved has been successfully socialize
Jou I N V ~ L V ~ ~ ~ N T 33

today's bureaucratic society. Most socializa- ANIIERSON, K. Activity preferences and leadership
lion processes use social motivations for con- behavior of head nurses. Journnl oJ Nzusing Re-
search, 1964, 13, 239-243.
trol; that is, nonconformity is discouraged Asrr, P. W. The SIZA employee inventory: A sta-
by social rejection, and conformity to norms tistical analysis. I'ersonnel Psychology, 1054, 7 ,
is rewarded with social acceptance. The job- 319-336.
isivolved person may have begun with stronger UERRTEN,F. K., & ANGOTT, W. 1%. The sensitivity
of employee attitude questionnaires. Persomzel
affiliative needs than the maverick who can- E'sychology, 1960, 13, 317-327.
not be taught the Apollonian virtues of work, DUBIN,K. Industrial workers' worlds: A study of
and thus later shows up as the sort of person the "central life interests" of industrial worlicrs.
who needs to form friendly relationships Social Problems, 1955, 3, 131-142.
and to identify with his superiors and the DUUIN, R . T h e world of work. lTnglcwood Cliffs,
N . J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958.
organization. I<.
~ ~ J B I N , H u m a n relations i n odwzinistrution. Englc-
Whichever is the case, the job-involved wood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-llall, 1961.
person is no lone wolf. In fact, the data from EDWARDS, A. L., & KII.PATRTCK,F. 1'. A technique
all three groups remind one of the "mana- for the construction of attitude scales. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 1948, 32, 374-384.
gerial personality9' as described by Henry FEENCII,J. R. P., JR., & KAIIN,R. A programmatic
( 1949)' especially the executive traits of high- approach to studying the industrial environmenl
achievement desire, mobility drive, activity and mental health. Journal of Social Issues, 1962,
and aggression, and detached relations with 18, 1--47.
s~~bordinates. The job-involved head nurses GIIISELLT, E. E. The forced-clroice technique in
self-description. Personnel Psychology, 1954, 7 , 201-
scored low on "consideration," matching 208.
Henry's description of the executive as one GUION,R. Industrial morale-the p r o l h n of termi-
who "treats his subordinates in a detached nology. I'ersonnel Psychology, 1958, 11, 59-61.
and impersonal way, seeing them as 'doers of HARMAN, H. Modern factor analysis. Chicago:
Univer. Chicago Press, 1960.
work,' rather than as people." Perhaps it is H I ~ A R IZ.
N , E. Job characteristics and worker motiva-
reasonable that organizations would select tional make-up. Unpublished master's thesis, Mas-
job-involved people as executives: few others sachusetts Institute of Technology, School of In-
would be willing to make the personal sacri- dustrial Management, 1962.
fices necessary for success in today's executive HENRY, W. 13. The business executive: Psycho-
dynamics of a social role. American Journal oj
suite (cf. Warner Kr Abegglen, 1955). .Sociology, 1949, 54, 286 291.
A limitation of this study is the rather I~UGITES, E:. C. M e n and their work. Glencoc, Ill.:
narrow range of occupations sampled; all Free Press, 1958.
the above conclusions are thus limited to ~[CENDALL, L. M., SMITH, PATRICIAC., IIUI.IN, C. I,,,
& LOCKE,15. A. Cornell studies of job satisfaction:
them. Pdentification of more specific con- IV. The relative validity of the job tiescriplive index
comitants of job involvement must await and other methods of measurement of job satis-
further research. From the present results it faction. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1963. (Mimeo)
seems clear that job involvement is affected LEWIS, HELENG. l<xpcrimental study of the role of
by local organizational conditions (mainly the ego in work. Journal of l<zperinzenlul Psy-
chology, 1944, 34, 113--126.
social ones), as well as by value orientations LEWIS, HELENG., & FRANKLIN,J. The significance
learned early in the sociaIization process. The of taslr-orientation in work. Journal o f Experi-
role of socialization in job involvement re- mental Psychology, 1944, 34, 195-215.
mains unclear because of the failure of social- L O ~ A I I LT., M. Patterns of job attitudes in two
assembly tcchnologics. Adnzi~zistrative Science
dais data to relate to job involvement. (The Quarterly, 1964, 8 , 482--519.
somewhat shaky finding that easterners are McGrmcoe. D. M. Conditions of dfective industrial
less involved than others is intriguing, but leadership. Journal of Consulling Psychology, 1944,
needs further investigation.) Perhaps the 8, 55-63.
(kvelopment of the scale to measure job PRESTILUS,R. V. T h e organizational society. New
York: Knopf, 1962.
involvement reported here will facilitate WARNER,Mi. L., & Arm;cr,a~, J. C. Rig busi?zess
Progress in the understanding of some of leaders in America. New Yorlr: Harper, 1955.
h s e problems. W I C I ~ R TF. , R. Turnover, arid cmployces' feelings
of ego-involvement in the thy-to-day operations
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A1rI'oRi, G. W. The pqychology of participation. 197.
JJ\ychologital R e v i ~ w ,1947, 52, 117-132 (Received October 25, 1963)

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