Why so Fed Up and Footloose in it? Spelling Out the Associations between Occupation and Overall Job Satisfaction Shown By WERS 2004

Analysis of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 employee data shows striking differences in levels of overall job satisfaction among occupational groups. The examination is based on the 81 Minor Occupation groupings in UK Standard Occupational Classification 2000 classification. Taking a possible specific occupational effect possibly conditioned by resonance effects, as a theoretical point of departure, multivariate analysis is used to restate apparent occupational effect as occupationally bundled individual-level variables and workplace influencesa process seen as exchanging nominal-level measurement (names of occupations) with theoretical variables. Although 13 minor occupational groups retain statistically significant independent influence after the statistical treatment, these effects are small. Detailed illustration and specification of bundling effects and further examination of their sources take information and communications technology and communication professionals as their point of reference.

[1]  E. Durkheim The Division of Labour in Society , 1934 .

[2]  A. Gouldner Cosmopolitans and locals : toward an analysis of latent social roles-II , 1957 .

[3]  L. Sayles,et al.  Behavior of industrial work groups , 1958 .

[4]  D. Miller,et al.  Behavior of Industrial Work Groups: Prediction and Control. , 1959 .

[5]  L. Coser,et al.  Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and His Industry. , 1964 .

[6]  Labor And Management In Industrial Society , 1966 .

[7]  W. H. Scott,et al.  Management Structure and Computerization , 1969 .

[8]  Sanford Labovitz,et al.  The Assignment of Numbers to Rank Order Categories , 1970 .

[9]  A. Kalleberg A causal approach to the measurement of job statisfaction , 1974 .

[10]  Arne L. Kalleberg,et al.  Work Values and Job Rewards: A Theory of Job Satisfaction. , 1977 .

[11]  L. Griffin,et al.  Positional Sources of Inequality in Job Satisfaction , 1978 .

[12]  Richard Layard,et al.  Human Satisfactions and Public Policy , 1980 .

[13]  Ronald G. Ehrenberg,et al.  Research in Labor Economics. , 1981 .

[14]  D. Wakefield,et al.  On the Causal Ordering of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment , 1986 .

[15]  Paul D. Williams,et al.  A user's guide to the General Health Questionnaire , 1988 .

[16]  Jack K. Martin,et al.  Education and Job Satisfaction , 1989 .

[17]  Todd L. Idson,et al.  Establishment size, job satisfaction and the structure of work , 1990 .

[18]  Ken Binmore,et al.  The Theory of Choice: A Critical Guide , 1992 .

[19]  Charles E. Lance,et al.  Examining the Causal Order of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment , 1992 .

[20]  Leonard R. Sussman,et al.  Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, and Ratio Typologies are Misleading , 1993 .

[21]  A. Oswald,et al.  Unhappiness and Unemployment , 1994 .

[22]  A. Oswald,et al.  Is job satisfaction U-shaped in age? , 1996 .

[23]  A. Oswald,et al.  Satisfaction and comparison income , 1996 .

[24]  A. Clark Job Satisfaction in Britain , 1996 .

[25]  J. P. Wanous,et al.  Overall job satisfaction: how good are single-item measures? , 1997, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  A. Clark Job Satisfaction and Gender. Why are Women so Happy at Work , 1997 .

[27]  Andrew J. Oswald,et al.  Happiness and economic performance , 1997 .

[28]  K. C. O'shaughnessy,et al.  The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce , 1999 .

[29]  Alfonso Sousa-Poza,et al.  Taking Another Look at the Gender/Job‐Satisfaction Paradox , 2000 .

[30]  P. Sloane,et al.  Job Satisfaction, Comparison Earnings, and Gender , 2000 .

[31]  S. Crowther,et al.  The New Deal at Work – Managing the Market Driven Workforce , 2000 .

[32]  Andres Sousa-Poza,et al.  Well-being at work: a cross-national analysis of the levels and determinants of job satisfaction , 2000 .

[33]  Jim Walker The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce , 2001 .

[34]  P. Cappelli Why is it so hard to find information technology workers , 2001 .

[35]  Satisfied Movers, Committed Stayers , 2001 .

[36]  Andrew E. Clark,et al.  What really matters in a job? Hedonic measurement using quit data , 2001 .

[37]  Timothy A. Judge,et al.  Dispositional Affect and Job Satisfaction: A Review and Theoretical Extension , 2001 .

[38]  Tim Cotter,et al.  Do personality factors predict job satisfaction , 2002 .

[39]  Michael Fitzpatrick,et al.  Work Stress: The Making of a Modern Epidemic , 2002 .

[40]  Remus Ilies,et al.  On the heritability of job satisfaction: the mediating role of personality. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[41]  M. Rose,et al.  Good Deal, Bad Deal? Job Satisfaction in Occupations , 2003 .

[42]  Zella King,et al.  The ‘bounded' career: An empirical study of human capital, career mobility and employment outcomes in a mediated labour market , 2005 .

[43]  Francis Green,et al.  An Investigation of National Trends in Job Satisfaction in Britain and Germany , 2005 .

[44]  Michael J. Rose Job Satisfaction in Britain: Coping with Complexity , 2005 .

[45]  Michael J. Rose Do rising levels of qualification alter work ethic, work orientation and organizational commitment for the worse? evidence from the UK, 1985–2001 , 2005 .

[46]  The costs of a career in minutes and morbidity , 2005 .

[47]  Paul Stewart Employment, trade union renewal and the future of work : the experience of work and organisational change , 2005 .

[48]  M. Rose Career perceptions and career pursuit in the UK, 1986-2002 , 2005 .