Factors affect on the job behavior at thermtrol corporation

Following the analysis process, factors collected are Organizational Commitment, Work Control, Goal and Process Clarity, Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy and On the Job Beh

RESEARCH PROJECT

(BMBR5103)

FACTORS AFFECTING ON - THE - JOB

BEHAVIOR AT THERMTROL CORPORATION

August, 2015

ADVISOR’S ASSESSMENT

ADVISOR’S SIGNATURE

NGUYEN THE KHAI (DBA)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To complete this paper, I have to send my special thanks to Nguyen The Khai, DBA who has shown our class every step of how to do a research and run SPSS software Moreover, he had even personally gone through and give valuable advised on our paper to every individual in class Without such detail instructions and advise, we are unable to complete this paper of Business Research Methods

I would also like to thanks employees of Thermtrol Coporation, whom had help to complete the questionnaires which is essential for me to conduct further on the research

Lastly, I would like to thanks my family and all friends for supporting me during

my MBA program in order to complete all assignments especially this paper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 5

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Thermtrol Corporation Introduction 7

2 Executive Summary 7

3 Products and Services 8

4 Thermtrol Vision 9

5 Thermmtrol Mission 9

6 Thermtrol Technology 10

7 Thermtrol Organization Chart 12

8 Research Introduction 12

9 Goal of the Research 13

10 Objective of the Research 13

11 Limitations of the Research 13

12 Research Questions 13

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Organizational Commitment 14

2 Work Control 14

3 Goal and Process Clarity 16

4 Fairness Perceptions of an Organization Policy 16

5 On the Job Behaviors 17

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES 1 Research Model 19

2 Hypotheses 20

2.1 Organizational Commitment 20

2.2 Work Control 22

2.3 Goal and Process Clarity 26

2.4 Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy 29

2.5 On the Job Behaviors 32

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 1 Cronbach’s Alpha 36

2 Descriptive Statistic 37

3 Hypothesis Testing 38

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of The Results 38

2 Discussion and Recommendation 38

3 Limitation 39

REFERENCES 40

APPENDIX 1: Survey Questionnaire 43

APPENDIX 2: Presentation Slides 51

ABSTRACT

The success of an organization is widely believed to stem from individuals’ contributions and its fellows are precious assets of an institution This is especially true for Thermtrol Corporation

Thermtrol Corporation is currently facing challenges is in recently some employees have intention to leave Thermtrol Corporation after being a long time in service Accordingly, identifying the factors affecting the levels of organization commitment to attract employee’s cooperation and contributions in the long time is critical Being able to tackle this mission will bring about a desirable success for Thermtrol Corporation in the human resource management

The theoretical framework of this study will be tested by collecting data from 300 Thermtrol Corporation employees in the Head Office and Workshop They are provided their ideas in the trial and official surveying processes The reliability analysis, descriptive analysis, and hypothesis testing were employed to analyze the data

The purpose of the study is to explore factors affecting to the organizational commitment of employees in Thermtrol Corporation through a questionnaire Following the analysis process, factors collected are Organizational Commitment, Work Control, Goal and Process Clarity, Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy and On the Job Behaviors

The interpretation of collected data will be followed by the researcher’s strategic recommendations related to organizational commitment In spite of unavoidable limitations, the research outcomes are expected to be a possibly constructive source for Thermtrol Corporation to refer in planning and developing the strategies to enhance the organizational commitment of the employees

Key words: Organizational Commitment, Work Control, Goal and Process Clarity,

Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy and On the Job Behaviors

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1 Thermtrol Corporation Introduction

Thermtrol History and Milestone

In 1987 the company was founded as Thermtrol Corporation A new line of probe thermostat switches for pressure washer and related industrial equipment manufacturers is designed and launched This marks the beginning of Thermtrol’s growth into new markets with a rapid expansion of our product portfolio

1990 Thermtrol is recognized as a key value-added partner to Texas Instruments Sensors & Controls Division (now Sensata Technologies) for our demonstrated pattern of superior customer service, product quality, and pragmatic "can do - will do” attitude This product line is the foundation for establishing our core competency in wire termination

In 1991 Thermtrol made continued alliances and value-added partnerships with many other companies in the thermal overload industry These are used to further fuel the growth of existing lines and expand our markets

1996 Thermtrol makes its first acquisition with the purchase of Mighty Mite Controls of Akron, Ohio, a vanguard in the development of bimetal thermostats for the appliance market with origins dating back to the 1950’s This addition helps propel Thermtrol into an innovative products company, furthering our manufacturing capability

In 1997 we saw the successful launch of the SH7AM series self-hold protector This thermal safety device has become the standard in many motor and appliance protective applications

In 2000 as we formalized our quality process and procedures, Thermtrol was audited for and receives our first ISO 9001 certification Customer service and quality remains the cornerstone of our business

In 2002 Thermtrol pioneers into the global market by opening our first international sales branch office in Hong Kong This move solidifies the increase in demand and support for Thermtrol products in Asia

In 2003 Thermtrol launched its first wholly owned Asian manufacturing site located in the Vietnam Singapore Industrial park, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to take advantage of the solid Asian manufacturing environment and establish local sourcing with related electrical component assembly including wiring harness assembly

In 2007 Thermtrol acquired MGI Manufacturing in Cary, Illinois This acquisition brings with it specialty engineering and plastic molding expertise in manufacturing wire harnesses for the automotive and related industries

In 2010 following several years of expansion in Vietnam, we built a new 100,000 square foot wholly owned facility to support our continued growth and expansion into the wire harness business

In 2012 Investment into Thermtrol Vietnam with over $1.5M in test equipment (more detail in our quality section), new molding equipment and engineering resources added to facilitate quality and customer service responsiveness

In 2013 continued growth now has Thermtrol with a global footprint that includes over 500 skilled team members and in the future, Thermtrol will continue

to grow at a pace that ensures our commitment to success by filling our customers' unique needs while helping reduce their total cost of ownership

2 Executive Summary

Corporation is a manufacturer of wire/cable harnesses, thermal protectors, and sub-assemblies Thermtrol has their global headquarters located in Northeast Ohio and they have manufacturing sites in both Ohio and Vietnam

New factory of Thermtrol is located at Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park –

56 Independent Ave – Binh Duong Province since 2009, its capacity was designed

$60M per year but Sales value from the new factory in 2014 is only $20M Therefore, their goal is increasing sales value from $20M to $50M within next 5 years Thermtrol determines new marketing segment is focusing on world class customers with Automotive and Medical

3 Products and services

With over 25 years of serving manufacturers of all sizes covering a broad range of industries, Thermtrol can solve your wiring harness and custom electrical assembly needs As a leading producer of wire harness and over molded products and possess the broad capabilities to mold virtually anything and engineer the harness solutions that our customers’ require

Thermtrol is the expert in custom wire harness and plastic injection insert/over-molding, with customers in commercial vehicle manufacturing, automotive supply, industrial equipment, agricultural equipment and sensors and controls

Thermtrol is Flexible manufacturing facilities with the ability to handle both high production programs and short run orders Quick turn-around time on our USA-based short run lines to fulfill prototype, samples to support program development and production launches and Engineering support through all phases

of design and engineering As a leader in the Wire Harness & Thermal Control industries, Thermtrol strives to deliver quality products & services to a high global standard Knowing the competitive marketplace, Thermtrol endeavor to be your supplier of choice through not only quality products, but exceptional customer service as well as want to be your “Go To” supplier

Thermtrol values feedback from customers on its services and uses the feedback to make improvements in the products & services offered

4 Thermtrol Vision

To bring the highest value and satisfaction to our customers, our suppliers, and our employees, every participant in every process of our organization is a stakeholder in success of our company, and exceeding customer expectations is achieved by a consistency of purpose that every individual has ownership in quality

to become a world company within 25 years

5 Thermtrol Mission

Thermtrol is your reliable partner in Wire harness We are exceeding world class customer expectations through world class quality, customer service

excellence and engineering support and using high technology of US and European; all at competitive prices, talent staffs, responsibility to social, community and environment, to be enabling us to become our customer bench mark supplier

3 Automatic Wire Cutting & Terminating Machine Komax 255/ others

Sumitomo modern

Measure equipment

7 Thermtrol Organization Chart

Figure 1: Thermtrol corporate structure

8 Research Introduction

Significant of Research

As introduced above, to serve for world class customers with products that are required absolute safety for users such automotive and medical parts, Thermtrol has invested billions of dollars for the good factory, machines, equipment and supported management systems However, to operate the newest modern machines,

equipment and own the advanced technologies as mentioned above, company need

to have talent staffs, high skills operators and loyalty

In the fact, even if Thermtrol is a one of top companies in the area in paying salary for staffs and also invest much for training but the annual employee turnover rate is not low if compared with other companies and it showed a negative trend in recent years

The high employee turnover rate is negative impacted most company KPIs such as quality performance (PPM), delivery performance (delivery on time), customer complaints, operation costs…

9 Goal of the Research

The goal of this research is finding factors that related to the employee job behavior, specific is the impactions of commitment, work control, goal & process clarity, and fairness perception on the job behavior

10 Objective of the Research

This research is to be achieved following objectives:

 To find out influence factors on the job behavior

 To investigate root causes of negative factors

 To propose solutions to be able to improve the employee turnover rate

11 Limitations of the Research

Just three days at Thermtrol, it isn’t enough time for studying to find out right variables that impact on the Job Behavior Doing this research is the first time for me, my limited experience may be also a limitation of this research

12 Research Questions

The questionnaire will be established based on elements so that its answers to search the relationship between the job behavior and its element factors such as

 How does the organization commitment influence on the job behavior?

 How does work control impacte to the job behavior?

 How is the job behavior influenced by goal and process clarity?

 How is the fairness perceptions related to the job behavior?

CHAPTER II: LITERA REVIEW

The chapter presents definitions of elements’ model and their relationship, specific

as below:

 Organizational Commitment

 Work Control

 Goal and Process Clarity

 Fairness Perceptions of an Organization Policy

 On the Job Behavior

1 Organization Commitment

Multiple definitions of organizational commitment are found in the literature Bateman and Strasser state that organizational commitment has been operationally defined as “multidimensional in nature, involving an employee’s loyalty to the organization, willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, degree of goal and value congruency with the organization, and desire to maintain membership” (p.95) Mowday, Steers, and Porter (1979) identified commitment-related attitudes and commitment-related behaviors Porter et al (1974) Schultz, discuss three major components of organizational commitment as being “a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a definite desire to maintain organizational membership” Sheldon (1971) defines commitments as being a positive evaluation of the organization and the organizations goals According to Buchanan (1974) most scholars define commitment as being a bond between an individual (the employee) and the organization (the employer), though his own definition of commitment

Organizational commitment has an important place in the study of organizational behavior This is in part due to the vast number of works that have found relationships between organizational commitment and attitudes and behaviors

in the workplace (Porter et al., 1974, 1976; Koch and Steers, 1978; Angle and Perry, 1981) Furthermore, Batemen and Strasser (1984) state that the reasons for studying organizational commitment are related to “(a) employee behaviors and performance effectiveness, (b) attitudinal, affective, and cognitive constructs such

as job satisfaction, (c) characteristics of the employee’s job and role, such as responsibility and (d) personal characteristics of the employee such as age, job tenure” (p 95- 96)

2 Work Control

Job control and workplace well-being

Job control, as defined here, is a perceived ability to exert some influence over one’s work environment, in order to make it more rewarding and less threatening For years, theories of occupational health and performance have hypothesised that providing people with perceived and real control over their work serves to improve mental health, job satisfaction, and performance*/e.g the job characteristics model (Hackman & Lawler, 1971), the sociotechnical systems approach (e.g Emery & Trist, 1960), action theory (Frese & Zapf, 1994; Hacker et al., 1968), and the demands-control model (Karasek, 1979) In line with these theories of work control and employee health, Terry and Jimmieson (1999) noted,

in their review of this research literature, that there appears to be ‘consistent evidence’ that high levels of worker control are associated with low levels of stress related outcomes, including anxiety, psychological distress, burnout, irritability, psychosomatic health complaints, and alcohol consumption (p 131) In addition, Bosma et al (1997) showed that low levels of job control longitudinally predict new reports of coronary heart disease, amongst London-based civil servants Furthermore, Bond and Bunce (2001) showed, using a longitudinal, quasiexperimental design, that a work re-organisation intervention could improve absenteeism levels, and self-rated performance, by increasing their job control Emma J Donaldson-Feilder & Frank W Bond

We believe that it is important to account for job control in the present study,

as it is one of the most heavily researched work and organisational characteristics examined in studies of occupational health (e.g Parker & Wall, 1998) Therefore, it

is not possible to begin gauging the incremental validity, and hence the importance,

of acceptance and EI to organisational behaviour and occupational health psychology, unless we know the degree to which they can predict well-being, over and above this work design characteristic

3 Goal and Process Clarity

Researches show that task performance is affected positively in organization with specific goal clarity than in organization with no goal clarity at all Goal clarity influence organization commitment by affecting task performance of employees Goals Enhancement can serve to clarify the person's role in organization and to intensify the person's awareness of associations among his liability and responsibilities of others If goals of employment are illuminated, a considerable source of role uncertainty is reduced, this in turns affect employee clarity of expectation Goals are sources of professional Challenge the level of challenge being affected by goal difficulty Amplification in difficulty of goal increases job difficulty (Denis D Umstot, 1994)Locke summarized in number of researches it was depicted magnification of goals intensify performance of employees (Locke, 1976) Oldham It was discovered that it not only boost importance of task but also bring sense to otherwise routine job Goal is focus on end results rather than measuring the ways how to achieve these goals thus making the work environment self- sufficient Goal setting and feedback are interconnected bond that formulate there importance to one another Positive feedback like individual affection with organization, higher performance shows objectivity of goals Shaw, B., & Oldham, 1978)

4 Fairness Perceptions of an Organization Policy

A concept related to organizational justice is corporate social responsibility (CSR) Organizational justice generally refers to perceptions of

fairness in treatment of individuals internal to that organization while corporate social responsibility focuses on the fairness of treatment of entities external to the organization Corporate social responsibility refers to a mechanism by which businesses monitor and regulate their performance in line with moral and societal standards such that it has positive influences on all of its stakeholders (Carroll, 1999) Thus, CSR involves organizations going above and beyond what is moral or ethical and behaving in ways that benefit members of society in general It has been proposed that an employee’s perceptions of their organization’s level of corporate social responsibility can impact that individual’s own attitudes and perceptions of justice even if they are not the victim of unfair acts (Rupp et al., 2006)

The idea of organizational justice stems from equity theory (Adams, 1963, 1965), which posits that judgments of equity and inequity are derived from comparisons between one’s self and others based on inputs and outcomes Inputs refer to what a person perceives to contribute (e.g., knowledge and effort) while outcomes are what

an individual perceives to get out of an exchange relationship (e.g., pay and recognition) Comparison points against which these inputs and outcomes are judged may be internal (one’s self at an earlier time) or external (other individuals)

5 On the Job Behaviors

Even though various definitions of job search behavior exist, most of them have recognized its multidimensional nature For instance, Schwab, Rynes, and Aldag (1987) proposed that job search behavior consists of the sources used to acquire information about job vacancies as well as the intensity with which such information is pursued Soelberg (1967) developed a sequential model of job search behavior and distinguished a phase of planning job search (i.e., allocating resources

to job search and identifying search generators or sources to produce initial job alternatives) from a job search and choice phase (i.e., activating search generators, collecting information on job alternatives, and evaluating job alternatives, Power & Aldag, 1985) Similarly, Barber, Daly, Giannantonio, and Phillips (1994) suggested

that job search behavior refers to identifying the existence of job opportunities and gathering more detailed information on selected job alternatives

More recently, Kanfer et al (2001) defined job search behavior as the product of a dynamic self-regulatory process that begins with the identification of and commitment to an employment goal This goal subsequently activates search behavior designed to bring about the desired goal Accomplishing or abandoning the employment goal is posited to terminate the job search process and associated job search efforts and activities Given that job search behavior is Different Job largely self-regulated, Kanfer et al (2001) further conceptualized that it is likely to vary across individuals along three major dimensions: effort-intensity (effort and frequency of job search activity), content-direction (activities engaged in and quality of these activities), and temporal-persistence (dynamic processes and persistence in job search)

This chapter builds on the multidimensionality of job search behavior implied by these definitions and relies on the three dimensions proposed by Kanfer

et al (2001) to organize, review, and discuss the different kinds of job search behaviors and sources that have been studied in the literature (see Table 1 for a (non-exhaustive) overview) Whereas previous research has mainly focused on the effort-intensity dimension, research on the other two dimensions (i.e., the content and dynamics of job search behavior) is relatively scarce but equally or even more important

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESEs

1 Research Model

As mentioned above, from four independent constructs (Organization commitment, Work control, Goal and Process clarity and Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational policy) and the dependent construct (On – the - Job Behaviors) To investigate impacting of independent constructs on the dependent construct, I propose a research model as below

Figure 2: Hypothesized Research Model

a strong desire to maintain membership in an organization The various definitions reflect three broad themes: commitment reflecting an affective orientation toward the organization, recognition of costs associated with leaving the organization and moral obligation to remain with an organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997) An employee’ sliking for an organization is termed affective commitment and includes identification with and involvement in the organization Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so (Cohen, 1993) Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization Employees whose primary link to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain with their employer because they need to do so Finally, normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997) Others have argued that commitment reflects the psychological bond that ties the employee to the organization but that the nature of the bond can take three forms, labeled compliance, identification, and internationalization (O’Reilly &

Chatman, 1986) Compliance occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted not because of shared beliefs but simply to gain specific rewards In this case, public and private attitudes may differ Identification occurs when an individual accepts influence to establish and maintain a relationship; that is, an individual may respect

a group’s values without adopting them On the other hand, internationalization occurs when influence is accepted because the induced attitude and beliefs are congruent with one’s own value (Caldwell, 28 Chatman & O’Reilly, 1990; Meyer

& Allen, 1997; O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986; O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell, 1991) Clearly, not all of these views are in agreement For example, some researchers have questioned whether compliance should be viewed as a component of commitment because it is distinct form other common definitions and can be viewed as the antithesis of commitment That is, compliance has been found to correlate positively with employee turnover (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986), whereas commitment generally reduces turnover (Mowday et al., 1982) The studies I reviewed from the 1990s suggest there is a growing consensus that commitment is a multidimensional construct that certainly includes an effective dimension and many include components that reflect normative pressures as well as practical considerations such as the costs of leaving an organization and locating another job with similar pay and benefits

Hypothesis 1: Organizational Commitment is positively related to On – the - Job Behaviors

b Measures of construct of Organizational commitment

This measure, developed by Cook and Wall (1980), describes an employee’s overall organizational commitment The measure uses nine items The items can be grouped to form subscales for organizational identification, organizational involvement, and organizational Loyalty Each subscale contains three items

Coefficient alpha values ranged from 71 to 87 (Furnham, Brewin, & O’Kelly, 1994; Oliver, 1990; Sanchez & Brock, 1996) The identification, involvement, and Loyalty subscales correlated positively with work rewards and

committed behaviors, which included such actions as reading in-house publications, attending general meetings, voting frequently in internal elections, activism, and job effort The three subscales all coưclatcd negatively with the range of other employment alternatives (Oliver, 1990) Furnham et al {1994) found that a personality style that tends to attribute positive events at work to internal causes correlated positively with the combined measure of organizational commitment Responses are obtained using a 7-point Likert-type subscale where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree

Questionnaire

1 I am quite proud to be able to tell people who it is that I work for

2 I sometimes feel like leaving this employment for good (R)

3 I’m not Willing to put myself out just to help the organization (R)

4 Even if the firm were not doing too well financially, I would be reluctant to

change to another employer

5 I feel myself to be part of the organization

6 In my work I like to feel I am making some effort, not just for myself, but for

the organization as well

7 The offer of a bit more money with another employer would not seriously make

me think of changing my job

8 I would not recommend a close friend to join our staff (R)

9 To know that my own work had made a contribution to the good of the

organization would please me

2.2 Work Control

a Definition

The demand for valid measures of job characteristics is driven by continuing efforts in organizations to determine the features of jobs that induce employees to work harder and perform better One of the most widely used perspectives of how aspects of jobs affect employee Willingness to consistently perform better is the job characteristics model (JCM) developed by Hackman and Oldham (1980) This

model predicts that if a job is well designed, it leads to higher levels of three critical Psychological states These are experienced meaningfulness of the work, such as results from the job that are meaningful within the employee’s system of values; experienced responsibility for the outcomes of the work, or belief that the employee has personal accountability for the outcomes; and knowledge of the results of the work activities, including judgments of others about the quality or quantity of the work performed (Hackman & Oldham, 1980)

The JCM predicts that jobs that are well designed have live key characteristics:

1 Skill variety, which is the extent to a job requires the use of different skills and

talents

2 Task identity, which describes the extent to which a job involves completing a

whole identifiable outcome

3 Task significance, which is the degree to which a job has impact on the lives of

people in an organization or society in general

4 Autonomy, which describes the extent to which a job provides the employee

with discretion to choose how the work is done and to set the schedule for completing the work activities

5 Job feedback, which indicates the extent to which carrying out the work

activities provides the employee with clear information about his or her performance

Jobs with these characteristics create higher levels of the critical Psychological states, which in turn leads to higher levels of internal work motivation (Hackman & Oldham, 1980) Research on the JCM has generally found that employees in jobs that score higher on variety, identity, significance, au-tonomy, and feedback have more internal motivation and better performance (Hoch-warter, Zellars, Perrewé, & Harrison, 1999; Renn & Vandenberg, 1995) Individual dif-ferences among employees (personality, age, etc.) may affect the relationship

between job dimensions, the psychological states, and internal motivation (Spector, Jex, & Chen, 1995)

The JCM has provided the framework from which to view the effects that job characteristics have on employee outcomes such as satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain with an organization (Hochwarter, Zellars, et al., 1999) Other approaches to describing and assessing job characteristics have been developed that provide an expanded view of jobs including engineering and biological perspectives (Campion, 1988) Many studies have attempted to isolate particular aspects of jobs, such as control, interdependence, and complexity that may have significant effects on workers (Dean & Snell, 1991; Karasek, 1979) An increasing amount of attention has been paid to the role that contextual variables play in the perceptions that employees form about their jobs For example, percep-tions of the extent to which employees believe they are empowered in their jobs and the extent to which employees believe the organization appreciates their efforts may affect the way that employees view I he identity, significance, variety, autonomy, and feedback in their jobs (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986; Gagne Senecal, & Koestner, 1997; Spreitzer 1995)

Hypothesis 2: Work control is positively related to On – the - Job Behaviors

b Measures of construct of Work Control

This measure, developed by Dwyer and Ganster (1991), describes the extent

to which workers perceive they have control over numerous aspects of the work environment These aspects include control over the variety of tasks performed, the order of task performance, the pace of tasks, task scheduling task procedures, and arrangement of the physical layout/environment In Dwyer and Ganster (1991), coefficient alpha was 87.Control over aspects of a job correlated positively with sick days taken, ji workload, and work satisfaction In multivariate analysis, control modérait the relationship of workload with work satisfaction (Dwyer & Ganster1991) Instructions and items: Below are listed a number of statements which could be used to describe a job Please read each statement carefully and

indicate the extent to which each is an accurate or an inaccurate description of your job by writing a number in front of each statement The response options a11 = very little, 2 = little, 3 = a moderate amount, 4 = much, and 5 = very much

Questionnaire

1 How much control do you have over the variety of methods you use in

completing your work?

2 How much can you choose among a variety of tasks or projects to do?

3 How much control do you have personally over the quality of your work?

4 I low much can you generally predict the amount of work you will have to do on

any given day?

5 How much control do you personally have over how much work you get done?

6 How much control do you have over how quickly or slowly you have to work?

7 How much control do you have over the scheduling and duration of your rest

breaks?

8 How much control do you have over when you come to work and leave?

9 How much control do you have over when you lake vacation or days off?

10 How much are you able to predict what the results of decisions you make on the

job will be?

11 How much are you able to decorate, rearrange, or personalize your work area?

12 How much can you control the physical condition of your work station (lighting,

temperature)?

13 How much control do you have over how you do your work?

14 How much can you control when and how much you have to interact with others

17 How much are things that affect you at work predictable, even if you can’t

directly control them?

18 How much control do you have over the amount of resources (tools, material)

that you get?

19 How much can you control the number of times you are interrupted while you

work?

20 How much control do you have over how much you earn at your job?

21 How much control do you have over how your work is evaluated?

22 In general, how much overall control do you have over work and work-related

be fearful about the potential répercussions for making decisions (Jackson & Schuler, 1985) Clear job roles tend to increase employee feelings of competency because individuals understand what needs to bedone (Spreitzer 1996) However, job roles are seldom clearly specified in advance, and there typically is an episodic role-making process between role senders and role receivers (Schaubroeck, Ganster,

Si me, & Ditman, 1993) Disruptions in the role definition process, limitations inherent in the nature of jobs or organizations, and differences in management styles may lead to job role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload These aspects of job roles in an organization may create job tension and stress for employees and negatively affect employee attitudes (Schaubroeck et al., 1993) Greater role dis-cretion and the freedom to innovate in a job role may enhance employee views about their job and positively affect attitudes (Gregersen & Black, 1992) Of course, role innovation in itself may be stressful and bring an employee into conflict with

others in a similar role or with established practices in an organization (West, 1987)

In general, fulfilling a job role may be an inherently stressful activity because some tension will always exist between the way an employee wants to do a job and the needs of an organization for conformity among persons filling similar job roles Most of the research about job roles has focused on role conflict and ambiguity Role conflict is defined as incompatibility between the expectations of parties or between aspects of a single role Role ambiguity is defined as uncertainty about what actions to take to fulfill a role Role conflict, ambiguity, and overload may affect employees because they increase stress Prolonged exposure to stressors increases demand on an employee's cognitive resources because individuals exert greater effort to cope and neutralize stressors This leaves fewer cognitive resources available for performing assigned job duties and responsibilities effectively (Fried, Ben-David, Tiegs, Avital, & Yeverechyahu, 1998) Employees may find it more difficult to function effectively in a work environment where a number of role stressors such as role conflict, ambiguity, and overload are present concurrently When stressful demands exceed an employee’s capacity to cope, work attitudes and performance are likely to deteriorate (Erera- Weatherley, 1996)

However, it is also possible that role conflict, ambiguity, and overload have direct effects on key employee outcomes independent of stress In a meta-analysis, Jackson and Schuler (1985) reported that role ambiguity and role conflict both correlated negatively with job satisfaction However, Netemeyer, Burton, and Johnston (1995) evaluated alternative structural models and found that (a) role ambiguity and role conflict both had direct negative effects on job satisfaction, (b) role conflict had positive effects on job tension (role ambiguity did not), and (c) role overload covaried with both conflict and ambiguity, but did not directly affect job tension or job satisfaction All three dimensions of role perceptions affected organizational commitment and intention to leave indirectly through their effects on job satisfaction