Steve M. Jex Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

Hackett and Guion (1985) offer a number of explanations for the weak relation between job satisfaction and absenteeism. One reason is the measurement of absenteeism itself. Although at first glance absenteeism would appear to be a rather simple variable, it is actually quite complex. For example, when measuring absences, one can distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. Excused absences would be allowed for events such as illnesses and funerals. In unexcused absences, the employee simply does not show up at work. One could argue that job satisfaction would be more likely to play a role in unexcused than in excused absences.

Steve M. Jex
Job satisfaction is, without a doubt, one of the most heavily studied topics in organizational psychology, as well as in the broader field of industrial/organizational psychology. To emphasize this point, many authors, over the years, have referred to Locke's chapter in the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (1976), where he reported that studies dealing with job satisfaction numbered in the thousands.

Steve M. Jex
[The Integrated Model of Work Stress (ISR) model] is straightforward, easy to understand, and has guided much of the work stress research and theorizing in the past 25 years.

Steve M. Jex
By definition, job performance is behavior, so job performance is rarely measured directly. More typically, what is measured is some external assessment of job performance.

Steve M. Jex
In the most general sense, organizational psychology is the scientific study of individual and group behavior in formal organizational settings. Katz and Kahn, in their classic work, The Social Psychology of Organizations (1978), stated that the essence of an organization is patterned human behavior. When behavior is patterned, some structure is imposed on individuals. This structure typically comes in the form of roles (normative standards governing behavior) as well as a guiding set of values. An organization cannot exist when people just do their own thing without any awareness of the behavior of others.

Steve M. Jex
The earliest scientific investigations related to the field of occupational stress were conducted by the well-known physiologist Walter Cannon in the early part of the twentieth century (e.g., Cannon, 1914). Cannon was a pioneer in the investigation of the relationship between emotions and physiological responses, and is perhaps best known for having coined the term homeostasis.

Steve M. Jex
Despite frequent criticism, the vast majority of job stress researchers continue to use subjective self-reports measures for both job stressors and job strains (Jex & Beehr, 1991). Part of the reason is undoubtedly because it makes data collection relatively easy, but ease alone has not made this approach so popular. First, there is a sound theoretical reason behind this choice. Serf-reports represent incumbent perceptions, and perceptions represent an important mediating process in the occupational stress process.

Steve M. Jex
Organizational constraints represent situations or things that prevent employees from translating ability and effort into high levels of job performance. The [Organizational Constraints Scale] OCS was based on the work of Peters and O'Connor (1980), who listed 11 areas of constraints that interfered with job performance. These common situational constraints in organizations may include faulty equipment, incomplete or poor information, or perhaps interruptions by others.

Steve M. Jex
Organizations are complex social systems that sometimes perform remarkably well and sometimes fail miserably. Organizational psychology is a subfield within the larger domain of industrial/organizational psychology that seeks to facilitate a greater understanding of social processes in organizations. Organizational psychologists also seek to use these insights to enhance the effectiveness of organizations—a goal that is potentially beneficial to all.

Steve M. Jex
Job performance is a deceptively simple term. At the most general level, it can be defined simply as all of the behaviors employees engage in while at work. Unfortunately, this is a rather imprecise definition because employees often engage in behaviors at work that have little or nothing to do with job-specific tasks.

Steve M. Jex