The Consequences of Job Categorization

Previous research has observed differences in job perceptions and evaluations associated with differences in various features of the work environment (i.e., the social context, the physical and organizational setting, personal characteristics of the jobholder). This research attempts to identify the process by which job judgments are related to underlying job categorizations which represent jobholders' implicit job theories. Study 1 addressed the question of whether prompting alternative categorizations of jobs affect perceptions of the jobs' motivating potential. In two sets of conditions, subjects were provided with evaluatively neutral job information associated with alternative categorizations. A second factor varied the saliency of the categorization information. Study 2 considered the affective consequences of job categorization. Subjects read job descriptions which associated the job with one of two alternative job categorizations. An additional piece of information was then provided which was intended to evoke (a) category-based processing, (b) piecemeal processing, or (c) alternative-category processing of the information. Results of the two studies indicate that judgments of jobs' motivating potential are very dependent upon subjects' job categorizations. However, evaluative judgments appear to be more influenced by the evaluative content of the job information than by the categorization of the job.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Kulik, Carol Therese

• Psychology, Industrial

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8711823

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70466