Attitudes Toward Selected Job Characteristics in a Working Population with Cross-Sample Analyses for a College Sample.

Abstract : The research reported describes attitudes toward 26 job characteristics among a sample of 228 employees of Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania and a sample of 104 Bryn Mawr and Haverford College undergraduates. Ratings of the desirability and the importance of characteristics in an ideal job were compared by sex, race, age, education and sample. The industrial sample also rated the set of characteristics on the degree to which they were present in respondents' current jobs. These ratings were analyzed by sex, job type and tenure in the company. Job satisfaction was addressed by comparing the desirability rating of each characteristic against its rating for degree of presence in the current job. An index of job satisfaction was constructed by summing these difference scores across the entire set of characteristics for each respondent. Job satisfaction was found to be positively correlated with tenure, but uncorrelated with race, sex or psychological sex role orientation. Implications of findings for designing jobs, designing job situations and retention of populations defined by sex, age, race and education level are discussed.