> Search for partners EU-research project "job satisfaction"
>
>
> Dear Ms or Mr,
>
> we are a research institute placed in Austria, Vienna and we would
> like
> to launch an EU-research project on "The International Index of Job
> Satisfaction and Occupational Stress" [preliminary title] in the 5th
> Framework Programme, First Call of the Horizontal Programme
> ”Improving
> the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base”. The goals of the project are
> the internationalisation of a long term project taking place in Austria
> (the ”Arbeitsklima-Index”, see below)
> the validation and enlargement of the current questionnaire being
> used
> by the ”Arbeitsklima-Index”
> Our concern to you as the national contact person of the 5th
> Framework
> Programme: We are searching for partners to participate in our
> research
> project. So we kindly ask you to recommend institutes/researchers
>
> of
> your country that are doing research on issues of
>
> job stress, occupational stress, job satisfaction, work conditions,
> climate at work, labor market, attitudes of employees,
> expectations,
> financial situation of employees, gender differences at work
>
> We would be glad if you sent us some adresses as soon as
> possible (as
> the deadline is on June 2nd, 1999) or if you sent the information to
> institutes you know that are doing research on labour market
> issues.
>
>
> Thank you in advance for your help,
>
> Christoph Hofinger
> Isabella Kaupa
>
>
> Job satisfaction and job stress
> Results of the ”Arbeitsklima-Index”
> A new survey instrument to discover and report job satisfaction and
> job
> stress on a regular basis was created in 1997. This is the
> climate-of-work-index ("Arbeitsklima-Index") that attempts to
> provide a
> micro-based indicator that complements the standard macro-based
> time
> series of economic, like GDP-growth, unemployment, and the like.
> It is
> a standardized quantitative instrument to investigate the
> development
> of qualitative aspects of work over time. First time results show that
> against an overall index of 100 wage earners only reach 96, civil
> servants 99, and salary earners 104.
> The Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer, AK) of the province of
> Upper
> Austria commissioned a survey on job satisfaction and job stress.
> Two
> institutes, SORA and IFES, cooperated in carrying out the
> research with
> the latter doing the actual survey and the former responsible for
> conceptual work and for the analysis and interpretation of the data.
> The first survey was carried out in June 1997 and is being repeated
> every three months. 26 questions, selected from a much larger
> batch
> after extensive testing, are being put to about 900 respondents at
> home
> addresses. Two quarterly surveys are combined into one for more
> reliable and more detailed results. All respondents are Austrian
> nationals.
> The results are being presented in the form of an index, called the
> climate-of-work-index. The index is made up of four components:
> society, company, work, expectations. The society component is
>
> in turn
> made up of two sub-components, optimism for society and social
> status.
> The company component is comprised of four sub-components:
> business
> outlook, image, leadership style, benefits. The work component is
> the
> most complex with eight sub-components: general job satisfaction,
> general life satisfaction, working time rules, income, social
> integration, psychological stress, physical stress, innovation stress.
> The expectations component has two sub-components, career and
> employment opportunities. Apart from the 26 questions contributing
> to
> the index there is information on about 35 other variables with
> information on the respondents, their position in the labour market
> and
> their work.
> Results
> The overall index in June 1997 stood at 73 on a scale from 0 to
> 100. As
> the authors argue, the figure does not so much reflect a great or
>
> small
> level of contentment as the construction of the index. It is a
> reference figure useful for comparisons against measures on the
> same
> scale. Consequently, they present the 73 points as 100% of the
> overall
> index and go on to compare results for various groups in relation to
> it. The following stand out:
> The index for salary earners is 4% above the overall index, while
> public servants reach 99% and wage earners only 96%.
> Salary earners did best on all four components. On the society
> component civil servants were as happy. Wage earners did worst
> on three
> components. Only on the company component did civil servants
> fare worse.
> Consequently, industries paying salaries have higher values than
> others. Banking and insurance reach 107%, education 104%,
> health
> services 103%, wholesale and retail trade 99%, while manufacturing
> industries such as wood processing at 97% or textiles at only 92%
> fare
> less well.
> On the general job satisfaction sub-component educational
> personnel has
> the highest scores. They are also particularly positive on the
> outlook
> for society and their personal social status. The high overall scores
> in banking and insurance derive, among others, from relatively high
> scores on the company component and on the career sub-
> component. The
> latter is particularly low in the textiles industry.
> Education is an important indicator of satisfaction. University
> graduates reach 105%, as do high school graduates, and vocational
> secondary school graduates reach 102%. By contrast,
> apprenticeship
> graduates come out at only 98% and workers with only compulsory
> schooling at 96%.
> However, education is not the sole determinant. Wage earners
> reach
> lower values than salary earners, even if they have the same
> education.
> This is particularly pronounced for employees with vocational
> secondary
> schooling. In fact, while satisfaction on all four components grows
> with education in the case of salary earners, it shrinks in the case
> of
> wage earners. There is one exception: better educated wage
> earners are
> more optimistic for the future than less well educated ones.
> In the civil service high school graduates at 104% show greater
> satisfaction than university graduates (102%). This results from the
> university graduates doing badly on the work component. In private
> industry salary earning university graduates reach 110%. This
> makes
> them the most satisfied group of employees.
> Civil servants are particularly unhappy with the leadership styles of
> their superiors, and they regard their chances of re-employment in
> the
> case of dismissal as particularly bleak. On both these counts wage
> earners do substantially better than civil servants, and salary
> earners
> do still marginally better.
> Psychological stress is experienced foremost by civil servants.
> Salary
> earners are 8% behind and wage earners another 10%.
> Innovation is also being experienced as much more stressful by civil
> servants than by salary earners or wage earners.
>
> The current index is available at www.ak-ooe.gv.at. A quarterly
> printed
> newsletter in German is also available and can be ordered from Mrs.
> Schober at +43 732 6906-2197.
>
> --
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