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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"
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)