Voluntary turnover is an important organizational issue with costs beyond monetary losses (Morrow & McElroy, 2007). Subsequently, the detrimental effects have engendered extensive research that has led to multiple turnover models attempting to unite antecedents to maximize the variance in predicting turnover and turnover intent (Griffeth et al., 2000). However, current models have omitted important aspects of an employee’s working experience. This dissertation addresses that gap; namely, the need to incorporate relational forces at work that keep individuals at their current organizations. The study integrates social relations and the traditional turnover model (Mobley, 1977) to examine the unique and joint effects of social relations in predicting turnover intent. An empirical study of two independent samples of full-time working individuals (N = 318; N = 235) endorsed a mixed methods approach to expand the measurement of social relations by examining social network content, strength, structure, and influence. Select work personality traits, work characteristics, and turnover outcomes were assessed via an online questionnaire. The results demonstrate that expressive link defection (i.e., friends leaving the organization), instrumental normative pressure to stay (i.e., advisors wanting employees to stay), and instrumental strength (i.e., frequency of contact with advisors) predict significant variance in turnover intent beyond traditional predictors. In addition, expressive link defection and instrumental normative pressure to stay had stronger relationships with turnover intent for longer tenured employees than shorter tenured employees.

Absenteeism and turnover in the workplace are complex phenomena that have implications for organisations and individuals alike. This study investigated the relationships of attitudinal factors with absenteeism and turnover intentions at a large healthcare organisation in the Bay of Plenty. A questionnaire completed by 407 employees had several measures such as job involvement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment (affective and continuance commitment), perceived organisational support, perceived supervisor support, work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, team cohesion, regional identification and turnover intention. Absenteeism data were collected from personnel records. The results indicated a probable association of job satisfaction, work-to-family conflict and perceived supervisor support with absenteeism, while turnover intention was associated with all predictors except continuance commitment. Perceived organisational support partially mediated the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention. No moderator effects were found for job involvement, perceived supervisor support and team cohesion on relationships between work-to-family conflict and affective commitment/job satisfaction and perceived organisational support and affective commitment respectively, however strong main effects were shown for job involvement and team cohesion. The main finding is that organisations must understand how organisational and supervisor support increases job satisfaction and affective commitment and decreases work-to-family conflict, which lowers absenteeism and turnover intention. The detection of high levels of regional identification indicate the need to acknowledge this construct, particularly in relation to turnover intention.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Ronald G. Downey / Job engagement is an emerging psychological construct that purports to measure individuals' level of psychological presence at work. The concept has received attention in both the academic literature and in industry. In the academic literature three measures of engagement exist that were examined in this research (Schaufeli, Britt, & Shirom). However, engagement has undergone little critical examination beyond factor analyses. This research sought to critically examine the concept of engagement as well as provide empirical evidence regarding its place in the nomological network of job attitudes. Both theoretically and empirically, engagement has been linked to personality and leadership variables; however, no research to date has attempted to examine all three concepts together. This research additionally sought to link engagement, personality, and leadership in a theoretically based model. Participants (N=382) at mid-sized financial institution completed a survey comprised of demographic items, attitude measures, a leadership measure, and a personality measure. Results indicated that the Schaufeli and Britt measures of engagement substantially overlap with job satisfaction and affective commitment; however, the Shirom measure (called vigor) is not redundant with job satisfaction or affective commitment. Hypothetical models of engagement, personality, and leadership were not good fits with the data; however, two modified models (one with Schaufeli's engagement and one with Shirom's vigor) had marginally acceptable fits. Further, hierarchical regressions indicated a strong connection between engagement and leadership and between engagement and personality. It seems that every so often a "new" concept comes along that offers organizations prosperity with little cost. Engagement is a popular and positive concept that is appealing to both practitioners and academics. Engagement, as a construct, is not a silver bullet for organizations. However, engagement or vigor may be a useful concept for organizations as both a selection instrument and as a way to assess the relative states of fulfillment of employees, groups, and organizations. Future directions for research and recommendations are discussed.

<p>This research examines the relationships between the satisfaction of psychological needs (belongingness and distinctiveness) on affective and cognitive attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment) with an emphasis on identifying key differential and moderating effects. This study hypothesizes the direct effects of need satisfaction and moderating effects of the source (individual & group) and domain (work & non-work) of need satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested with a cross-sectional survey of alumni from a regional college in the mid-Atlantic United States. Results indicated that satisfying the needs for belongingness and distinctiveness whether through source (individual vs. group) or by domain (work vs. non-work) have a positive impact on job attitudes. However, the results for the moderating and differential effects along with post-hoc analyses provides additional insights. Overall, this study found that the satisfaction of psychological needs have important direct effects on affective and cognitive job attitudes. Results indicated that the source of need satisfaction (individual and group) and the domain in which a need is satisfied do moderate the relationship between psychological need satisfaction and specific cognitive and affective job attitudes. In many circumstances, the moderating effect was not as expected. Additionally, the context of virtuality had a significant impact on only a few relationships. Post-hoc analyses showed that the relationship among the variables in this study are more complex than hypothesized and should be evaluated more fully. </p>

No description available.

This study examines the relationships of work family conflict with job related consequences. Although past studies related work family conflict to different types of job outcomes, little is known regarding its impact on more distal organizationally important outcomes and causal mechanisms through which these effects occur. Based on both quantitative and qualitative literature reviews, mediation hypotheses were developed to test whether proximal outcomes which were commonly used in past studies mediate the relationships of work family conflict with distal consequences including ratings of job performance and organizationally meaningful performance outcomes. Data were collected from 220 customer service workers, matched to 29 managers in 31 hotel food service outlets. In particular, this study used three sources of information such as employee and supervisor surveys and system-generated archival indexes for data analysis. The results of multiple regression analysis (Baron & Kenny, 1986) revealed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment mediate the relationship of work family conflict with only one work outcome—self-reported contextual performance. However, job satisfaction and organizational commitment failed to mediate the relationship between work family conflict and other distal outcomes (e.g., results-organizational indexes). Further, work family conflict was related to one of distal outcomes, check size. The significance of work family conflict's influence on job related consequences and the utility of proximal outcome variables are discussed. Implications for both research and practice are provided along with future directions for research on work family conflict in the hospitality literature. / Ph. D.

The main aim of this thesis is defining employee loyalty in its entirety and describing the concept of employee loyalty based on a qualitative research. The concept has been proposed by using theoretical knowledge, semi-structured interviews and qualitative method of thematic analysis with a partial process of grounded theory. The concept corresponds to the main research questions, and therefore formulates a theoretical definition of employee loyalty, loyalty aspects, and implications and possibilities of influencing loyalty within organizational processes. The results obtained illustrate the relationship between the job satisfaction and employee loyalty. The job satisfaction affects building and maintenance of a loyal employee relationship with the organization, but it could be also the consequence of such loyal relationship. The aspects of employee loyalty can include: personal skills, satisfaction, reciprocity of investments in the relationship, interpersonal trust, sharing of similar values and beliefs, experience, positive attitudes and desires, moral background, clear expectations and mapping of potential changes on both sides, knowledge of mutual goals, willingness to put common goals above individual ones, own responsibility towards common goals, mutual faith in the relationship, form of...

The purpose of the current study was to explore the role of six organizational factors (Equal Employment Opportunity, minority segmentation, diversity climate, instrumental social support, emotional social support, and token status) in the perception of discrimination in the workplace by minorities and majority-group members. Five outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to turnover, physical health, and psychological health) were investigated in response to perceived discrimination. Moderated mediation was used to test hypothesis where perceived discrimination mediated the relationship between organizational antecedents and outcomes; minority status served as the moderators. Support for the mediating role of perceived discrimination was found in the relationship between each organizational antecedent and outcome. In each case, poorer environmental conditions related to increased perceived discrimination which in turn related to more negative workplace attitudes and health outcomes. Implications for workplace design are discussed.

Satisfied employees are essential to an organization, as they are the primary means for meeting organizational needs. Employees who are more satisfied at work are less likely to leave their job or think about leaving their job, less likely to feel burnt out or stressed, and perform better at work. Job satisfaction is particularly important among criminal justice agencies, specifically probation agencies which largely rely on personnel for the supervision and rehabilitation of offenders. Yet the correlates of job satisfaction among juvenile probation staff are largely unknown. Theory suggests that organizational characteristics are influential predictors of job satisfaction across occupational domains. This current body of research is limited due to its predominant focus on institutional corrections, a deficiency in assessing a diverse variety of climate domains and their influence on job satisfaction, and a lack of standard factor analytic techniques. Accordingly, the goal of this study is to address these gaps within the current body of research and examine the correlates of job satisfaction among juvenile probation staff. First, the psychometrics properties of six perceived organizational climate domains (i.e., innovation and flexibility, communication, agency quality, supervisory support, job–related stress, and organizational support) and job satisfaction are evaluated. Second, salient personal and organizational characteristics which influence job satisfaction are identified. Specifically, the model evaluates both direct and indirect effects of perceived organizational climate characteristics on job satisfaction, as mediated through perceptions of job-related stress. Third, the study assesses whether job satisfaction varies across agencies. Towards this goal, the study uses baseline data from the Juvenile Justice – Translational Research on Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) initiative, a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded research project conducted in seven states with 36 participating juvenile probation agencies. Data are especially useful in the identification of job satisfaction correlates because they provide information on personal and organizational factors for a large sample of juvenile probation staff. This study used a number of analytic techniques including bivariate analyses, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, path analysis, and multivariate analyses. Findings from the current study expand our understanding of the influence of personal and organizational factors on job satisfaction to an understudied population. Overall, juvenile probation staff reported moderate levels of job satisfaction. Furthermore, results highlight the importance of work-place factors and suggest efforts towards increasing job satisfaction and staff retention should focus on the improvement of organizational characteristics.