Generational differences in workplace attitudes and job satisfaction

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Cucina ◽  
Kevin A. Byle ◽  
Nicholas R. Martin ◽  
Sharron T. Peyton ◽  
Ilene F. Gast

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence of generational differences in items measuring workplace attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction, employee engagement). Design/methodology/approach Data from two empirical studies were used; the first study examined generational differences in large sample, multi-organizational administrations of an employee survey at both the item and general-factor levels. The second study compared job satisfaction ratings between parents and their children from a large nationwide longitudinal survey. Findings Although statistically significant, most generational differences in Study 1 did not meet established cutoffs for a medium effect size. Type II error was ruled out given the large power. In Study 2, generational differences again failed to reach Cohen’s cutoff for a medium effect size. Across both studies, over 98 percent of the variance in workplace attitudes lies within groups, as opposed to between groups, and the distributions of scores on these variables overlap by over 79 percent. Originality/value Prior studies examining generational differences in workplace attitudes focused on scale-level constructs. The present paper focused on more specific item-level constructs and employed larger sample sizes, which reduced the effects of sampling error. In terms of workplace attitudes, it appears that generations are more similar than they are different.

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (10) ◽  
pp. 960-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Christian Adarkwah ◽  
Joachim Labenz ◽  
Berndt Birkner ◽  
UIrike Beilenhoff ◽  
Oliver Hirsch

Abstract Background More and more gastroenterologists are not satisfied with their working conditions and run the risk of developing burnout symptoms. Little is known about the job satisfaction and burnout risk among physicians working in endoscopy units in Germany. This study examines the risk of burnout and job satisfaction among gastroenterologists in Germany. Methods An electronic survey was distributed to gastroenterologists organized mainly in the Federal Organization of Gastroenterology in Germany (BVGD, Berufsverband Gastroenterologie Deutschland e. V.). In addition to general demographic variables, job satisfaction was determined using the Work Satisfaction Questionnaires (WSQ), and burnout risk was determined using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Results A representative sample of gastroenterologists organized in the BVGD (Berufsverband Gastroenterologie Deutschland e. V.) took part in the study (n = 683, 22 %). Above all, we could demonstrate relevant differences with regard to burnout risk and job satisfaction depending on the place of work, clinic structure, position in the clinic, and age. Younger physicians had significantly higher depersonalization (p < 0.001) and exhaustion scores (p < 0.001) with almost medium and small effect sizes (δt = 0.45 and −0.31). The higher the position in the clinic, the higher the accomplishment scores (medium effect size 0.27). Older physicians were especially more satisfied in the areas of patient care (p < 0.001, medium effect size δt = −0.53). Employed doctors show a higher level of satisfaction in terms of “burden” compared to practice owners (p < 0.001, δt = −0.69). Compared to norms used in the EGPRN study which were adapted to physicians, almost one-third of our sample had high depersonalization scores, about 17 % had high exhaustion scores, and about half had low personal accomplishment scores showing a higher general burden among German gastroenterologists. Conclusion Decreased work satisfaction and risk of burnout are important issues among German gastroenterologists. Specific actions should address this problem in order to avoid negative consequences, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Dympna Nolan ◽  
Elizabeth Fraser Selkirk Hannah

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of training on educational staff attitudes, sentiments, concerns and efficacy in providing support for children with Autism in mainstream settings. Design/methodology/approach The investigation adopted a pre-test/post-test, quasi-experimental, within-subject research design. In total, 35 early years educators, teachers and pupil support assistants from one Scottish Local Authority (LA) undertook training delivered by the LA’s Communication and Language Outreach Service. Measures included the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised (SACIE-R) scale and the teacher efficacy for inclusive practices (TEIP) scale pre and post-training. Post-training participants completed a questionnaire employing open and closed questions to assess perceived usefulness of training, application of knowledge and effectiveness of the teaching strategies. Findings Combining data from the three sectors there was a significant change in staff efficacy for inclusive practices (z=−3.406, p=0.001, p<0.05, with a medium effect size r=0.41) although there were differences between the sectors. There was a significant change in SACIE-R total scores (z=−3.945, p=0.000, p<0.05; with a medium effect size r=0.47), sentiments (z=−2.763, p=0.006, p<0.05; with a medium effect size r=0.33) and concerns (z=−3.685, p=0.000, p<0.05; with a medium effect size of r=0.44) subscale scores for the combined sector data. There was no significant change in the attitudes subscale scores for the combined sector data (z=−1.106, p=2.69, p>0.05; with a small effect size r=0.13) although there were differences between the sectors. Research limitations/implications Limitations include: small sample size, minor differences in the training in different sectors, purposeful sampling, use of questionnaire post-training, variability of completion of SCAIE-R and TEIP post-training. Originality/value There appears to be limited research into inclusive practices for children with Autism in the UK context, which this study aims to address.


Author(s):  
Andrew Pilny ◽  
C. Joseph Huber

Contact tracing is one of the oldest social network health interventions used to reduce the diffusion of various infectious diseases. However, some infectious diseases like COVID-19 amass at such a great scope that traditional methods of conducting contact tracing (e.g., face-to-face interviews) remain difficult to implement, pointing to the need to develop reliable and valid survey approaches. The purpose of this research is to test the effectiveness of three different egocentric survey methods for extracting contact tracing data: (1) a baseline approach, (2) a retrieval cue approach, and (3) a context-based approach. A sample of 397 college students were randomized into one condition each. They were prompted to anonymously provide contacts and populated places visited from the past four days depending on what condition they were given. After controlling for various demographic, social identity, psychological, and physiological variables, participants in the context-based condition were significantly more likely to recall more contacts (medium effect size) and places (large effect size) than the other two conditions. Theoretically, the research supports suggestions by field theory that assume network recall can be significantly improved by activating relevant activity foci. Practically, the research contributes to the development of innovative social network data collection methods for contract tracing survey instruments.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaochun Han ◽  
Yoni K. Ashar ◽  
Philip Kragel ◽  
Bogdan Petre ◽  
Victoria Schelkun ◽  
...  

Identifying biomarkers that predict mental states with large effect sizes and high test-retest reliability is a growing priority for fMRI research. We examined a well-established multivariate brain measure that tracks pain induced by nociceptive input, the Neurologic Pain Signature (NPS). In N = 295 participants across eight studies, NPS responses showed a very large effect size in predicting within-person single-trial pain reports (d = 1.45) and medium effect size in predicting individual differences in pain reports (d = 0.49, average r = 0.20). The NPS showed excellent short-term (within-day) test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.84, with average 69.5 trials/person). Reliability scaled with the number of trials within-person, with ≥60 trials required for excellent test-retest reliability. Reliability was comparable in two additional studies across 5-day (N = 29, ICC = 0.74, 30 trials/person) and 1-month (N = 40, ICC = 0.46, 5 trials/person) test-retest intervals. The combination of strong within-person correlations and only modest between-person correlations between the NPS and pain reports indicates that the two measures have different sources of between-person variance. The NPS is not a surrogate for individual differences in pain reports, but can serve as a reliable measure of pain-related physiology and mechanistic target for interventions.


Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmet Hakan Özkan

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention of information technology (IT) personnel.Design/methodology/approach3,844 studies which are published between 1998 and 2019 are screened on ScienceDirect, Scopus and ProQuest databases. 10,523 subjects formed the first data set regarding the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention, 7,903 subjects formed the second data set regarding the relationship between organizational commitment and turnover intention, 843 subjects formed the third data set regarding the relationship between empowerment and turnover intention, and 3,430 subjects formed the fourth data set regarding the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.FindingsResults showed that the effect size of the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment is the strongest (r = 0.59). The effect size of the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention (r = −0.50), and the effect size of the relationship between organizational commitment and turnover intention r = −0.51) were also large. But the effect size of the relationship between empowerment and turnover intention was medium (r = −0.34).Originality/valueThis study is rare, and it can be used by the managers working in the IT industry.


Author(s):  
Tatsushi Fukunaga

Abstract This study investigated whether any remarkable effects emerge in terms of overall complexity, complexity by subordination, accuracy, and fluency in two types of writing task repetition during a single academic semester (16 weeks). The Cognition Hypothesis states that tasks involving different cognitive demands will lead to different L2 output. Thus, this study explored whether any significant differences existed between two task types: descriptive and argumentative essays. The results revealed different patterns in the two types of writing tasks. For the descriptive essays, despite the improvements in overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency with a large effect size, no significant findings were confirmed for accuracy. In contrast, in the argumentative essays, the learners improved all the linguistic aspects, but with a medium effect size. This study also unraveled developmental trajectories to demonstrate how different variables interacted in the two different types of writing tasks throughout the measurement period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 461-479
Author(s):  
Hadjira Bendella ◽  
Hans-Georg Wolff

PurposeNetworking refers to goal-directed behaviors focused on building and cultivating informal relationships to obtain career-related resources. According to Gibson et al.'s (2014) model, personality traits represent prominent and important antecedents of networking. This study seeks to provide robust evidence on relationships between personality and networking by summarizing prior research using meta-analytical tools.Design/methodology/approachThe authors classify linking attributes between networking and personality into social, idea-related, task-related and affective behavioral domains and additionally include three compound traits that relate to several domains. They investigate two potential moderators: internal vs. external networking and prominent networking measures. Their comprehensive literature search identified 41 studies with 46 independent samples.FindingsThe authors find that social, idea-related and task-related traits have positive relationships with networking of medium effect size, whereas affective traits exhibit small but significantly positive effects. The compound trait of proactive personality appears to be the best predictor of networking. Moderator analyses indicate that there were hardly any differences concerning internal and external networking and also prominent measures.Originality/valueThe present study goes beyond narrative reviews contributing the first quantitative summary of these relationships. It identifies four behavioral domains that represent characteristics relevant to networking. The findings largely corroborate, but at times correct, narrative reviews on dispositional antecedents of networking. The authors highlight the importance of compound traits that have yet been overlooked by narrative reviews (e.g. self-monitoring).


2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Barron ◽  
Anna Leask ◽  
Alan Fyall

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to present strategies that hospitality and tourism organisations might adopt as a means of encouraging employee engagement, thus enabling the more effective management of an increasingly multi-generational workforce. This paper evaluates current strategies being adopted that might encourage employee engagement by a selection of hospitality and tourism organisations and develop recommendations for organisations wishing to more effectively engage the multi-generational workforce. Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts a mixed methods approach and presents findings based on a series of semi-structured interviews with management and self-completion questionnaires aimed at employees. Findings – The relationship between the supervisor and the employee remains a key enhancer regarding engagement and employees are increasingly demanding more contemporary methods of communication. Employers should take note of generational characteristics and adopt flexible policies attractive to all employees. Practical implications – This paper contributes no t only to the debate regarding generational differences in the workplace but it also identifies that the various generations evident in tourism organisations are desirous of similar working conditions and benefits. Organisations should consider the development of a range of packages that focus on linking employees with their purpose, their colleagues and their resources as a means of encouraging employee engagement. Originality/value – This study contributes to the debate regarding employee engagement and compares and contrasts initiatives that various tourism and hospitality organisations are adopting as a means of encouraging employee engagement. The study also elicits the views of the organisations employees to understand the extent of the effectiveness of such initiatives and makes recommendations regarding the most effective initiatives from both a management and employee perspective.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 1845-1858
Author(s):  
Chih-Chieh Wang ◽  
Hui-Hsien Hsieh ◽  
Yau-De Wang

PurposePrevious studies have found that abusive supervision undermines employees' work motivation and attitudes, namely work engagement and job satisfaction. However, less is known about the mechanisms by which abusive supervision negatively relates to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines employee silence as a mediating mechanism linking abusive supervision to employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from a sample of 233 full-time employees of a large hotel service company in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results showed that abusive supervision has a positive association with employee silence. Moreover, the results showed that employee silence mediates the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that organizational managers should provide supervisors with leadership interventions to prevent the occurrence of abusive supervision. Furthermore, organizational managers should provide employees with opportunities to voice their concerns through the use of organizational communication and participation, which can reduce employee silence and subsequently foster employee engagement and satisfaction at work.Originality/valueThis study advances our understanding of how abusive supervision results in poor work motivation and attitudes among employees. This contributes to the literature by identifying employee silence as a suitable mediating mechanism linking the negative associations of abusive supervision with employees' work engagement and job satisfaction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 524-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Payal Mehra ◽  
Catherine Nickerson

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the generational category that managers in India belong to on their job satisfaction and on their satisfaction with organizational communication; the authors defined organizational communication as the communication that occurs in interactions between employees. The authors wanted to see whether there would be differences between the generations in the attitudes to and expectations of organizational communication, and whether this, in turn, would influence their job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach A total of 400 managers working in public and private listed companies in India were surveyed using a questionnaire over the period of a year, from August 2016 to July 2017. This resulted in 334 responses. The questionnaire measured the respondents’ choice and comfort with communication media, their satisfaction with the communication at their workplace and the type of interactions that took place. It also measured the respondents’ job satisfaction. The study was inter-disciplinary in nature, in that it drew on several theories of communication, e.g. accommodation theory and media richness theory, alongside the findings from empirical studies that have looked specifically at intergenerational differences. Findings The authors found that organizational communication was positively related to job satisfaction, and also that generational category moderated the relationship between these two factors. In addition, the results show that Gen Y managers in particular were the least satisfied generation at work, and that they frequently used avoidance while communicating with older adults. The conclusion is that job satisfaction may be enhanced, by focusing on the development of a positive communication environment; in addition, employees who belong to different generations may define what constitutes a positive communication environment in very different ways. Originality/value Despite receiving some attention in other contexts, such as in the family, the impact of intergenerational differences in the workplace has not been widely investigated. A few studies do exist on the influence of generational differences on work outcomes and on attitudes and behaviors, but much still remains to be done. In addition, while there have been many studies on job satisfaction, as well as on levels of attrition in workplace settings, very few have looked specifically at non-Western contexts such as India. The present study attempts to contribute to this debate, by providing a comparison of the workplace communication preferences and experiences within multi-generational organizations in India.


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