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The purpose of the study was to examine how a shift in elements of organizational culture impacted attitudes toward job satisfaction in a medium-sized, consumer-owned electric utility over a period of 13 years. The unit of analysis was a municipal utility distributing electrical energy to approximately 27,000 customers. Data collection included the Science Research Associate Employee Inventory, a review of the organization's documents, and a subjective Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. A one-tailed z-test was performed to test whether or not the proportion of employees answering favorable in one survey was greater than the proportion answering favorable in the other survey. It was also used to analyze certain cultural changes. The elements of job satisfaction assessed were: job demands, working conditions, pay, employee benefits, friendliness and cooperation of fellow employees, supervisor/employee interpersonal relations, confidence in management, technical competence of supervision, effectiveness of administration, adequacy of communication, security of job and work relations, status and recognition, identification with the company, and opportunity for growth and advancement. Elements assessed depicting culture were attendance, safety, United Way participation and turnover. Conclusions of the study emphasized that long-term cultural aspects including attendance, safety and United Way participation may be changed positively while maintaining or improving attitudes toward certain aspects of job satisfaction. Areas of attitude improvement were pay, benefits, and effectiveness of administration. It was also concluded that employees with higher education levels and more behavioral training may have higher expectations of their supervisors.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among hardiness, health and burnout and to investigate the relationships of the subscales of hardiness to health and to the subscales of burnout among teachers in the Sullivan County School System. The Hardiness Test was used to measure hardiness and the Maslach Burnout Inventory Form Ed to measure burnout. Results of the Health Evaluation and Risk Test was reported on the Educators Demographic Data Survey. The study sample consisted of 501 teachers. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between hardiness and health; among the hardiness subscales, commitment accounted for the largest amount of variance in health. Multiple regression was used to analyze the relationships among the subscales of hardiness and the subscales of burnout. Of the hardiness subscales, commitment and control equally accounted for the greatest amount of variance in depersonalization and personal accomplishment. To determine the extent to which the subjects' demographic variables were related to any study variables, correlation coefficients were computed between demographic variables and each of the study variables. While age, years teaching experience, and level taught were significantly related to the study variables, the extremely low correlations indicate that only 1% of the variance in these three variables were explained by the study variables, preventing meaningful interpretation. Kobasa's health and hardiness theory is supported by the results of this study. These results also support previous research findings which suggest that hardiness buffers against burnout.

This study was conducted among middle school principals in Virginia to determine their perceptions of job-related stress factors. The entire population of middle school principals (grades 6, 7, 8) was selected to participate in the study. The Administrative Stress Index was used to assess factors that cause principals stress on the job and to measure their stress levels. A demographic data form was used to collect data on the variables of age, gender, administrative experience, assistant principal support, student enrollment, adults supervised, percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch, location of school, type of school, experience as a middle school principal, and educational attainment to determine if any of these variables correlated with the principals' stress as measured by the Administrative Stress Index. The Administrative Stress Index contained five subscales of seven questions each, which were used to indicate the perceptions of stress factors among the middle school principals in the study. The responses to the questionnaires were analyzed and the following statistics were computed from the data: percentage distribution, content analysis, multiple linear regression, and descriptive statistics. The results of the study suggest that public middle school principals in Virginia are experiencing low to moderate levels of stress in their work and report that they are mainly stressed by administrative constraints such as increased workloads, excessive meetings, time constraints, and unrealistic policy demands. Analysis of multiple linear regression revealed that the culminating effect of the principals' demographic characteristics contributed no more than 27.7% to the prediction of the principals' level of job-related stress. Further research on stress could be conducted among elementary and high school principals and with principals of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This study indicates a need for increased awareness of the causes of stress experienced by middle school principals experience so that superintendents, school boards, staff, and community can help reduce these stressors.

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No description available.

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This study investigated how Corporate Intranets are used by employees. It also examined the relationships between Intranet use and employees' self-concept and their commitment to their organization. In total, 230 surveys were collected from a large financial company in the high-tech industry headquartered in Silicon Valley. The survey measured organizational commitment, self-concept, work-self-concept, information seeking behaviors, Intranet use, types of information found on the Intranet, and additional demographic information. Statistics were computed using the SPSS program to run bivariate correlations. This study yielded many findings. Three key findings have emerged from this study that contribute to our understanding of self-concept in the work environment and new factors related to organizational commitment. The first indicated a positive relationship between employees' satisfaction with Intranet content and navigation and their work-self-concept. The second showed that satisfaction with Intranet content and navigation was also positively correlated with elements of organizational commitment. The third finding indicated that employees' work-self-concept had a significant relationship with elements of organizational commitment. The results of this study build on previous literature on information seeking behaviors, organizational commitment and self-concept. This study also contributes to academic research on the Intranet as a new organizational communication medium. The relationships between Intranet use and work-self-concept and commitment offer many possibilities for future research.

Occupational burnout continues to be a topic of great interest to those individuals who are concerned with the influence of work stress on mental health. Although many workers from a variety of occupations have been the focus of studies of burnout, there are few studies of burnout in firefighters. In conjunction with studying the obvious factors which are believed to be related to burnout in workers, there has been a call for researchers to include personality variables in the study of work stress. Neuroticism has been found to be related to the identification of work-related stressors as well as to be related to the impact of the stressors on workers. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived work-related stressors of firefighters and to determine the predictors of burnout after controlling for age and the personality variable of neuroticism. The research participants for this study included 142 firefighters from the Western U.S. Participants completed questionnaires that included demographic data, work-related background information, perceived work-related stressors, a measure of burnout, and a measure of neuroticism. Following an analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires, ten firefighters were interviewed for the purpose of gaining in-depth information regarding the responses in the questionnaires. The findings of this study indicated that there was a great deal of variety in what each participant perceived to be a work-related stressor. A content analysis technique yielded 12 categories of stressors: coworker conflict, patient-related, general work duties, administration, sleep-related, budget-related, change in work station, personal, danger to self, 9-1-1 abuse, public-related, and child abuse. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that after controlling for age (step 1), neuroticism (step 2) predicted approximately 21% of the variance in emotional exhaustion, 9% of the variance in depersonalization, and almost 7% of the variance in personal accomplishment. After controlling for age and neuroticism, objective and perceived work-related stressors accounted for an additional 14.6% of the variance in emotional exhaustion and for 13.9% of the variance in depersonalization. Only the objective work-related stressors accounted for an additional 8.9% of the variance in personal accomplishment.