Organization of Work: Measurement Tools for Research and Practice

This Web page is a work in progress. It will be updated as we learn of additional information resources for work organization measures (Web sites, texts, and other information sources). Please send us an e-mail with a description of other information sources not listed.

Please note: This list of resources does not constitute endorsement by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). This list is provided with the goal of sharing information on measurement tools that may be usefully applied in occupational health research.

Other Web-Based Information Resources on Work Organization Measures

• Academy of Management, Research Methods Division
• Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey
• Center for Social Epidemiology, Unhealthy Work
• John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health – Sociodemographics Questionnaire
• 2010 National Health Interview Survey – Occupational Health Supplement
• Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Sloan Work and Family Research Network
• University of Valencia (Spain), Psychometrics Research Unit – Questionnaires and Diagnostic Resources

Selected Texts

• Fields DL (2002) Taking the Measure of Work: A Guide to Validated Scales for Organizational Research and Diagnosis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  

  Content areas: organizational commitment, job characteristics, person-organization fit, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, job roles.

• Miller DC and Salkind NJ (Eds.) (2002) Handbook of Research Design & Social Measurement, 6th Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  

  Content areas: social status scales, group structure and dynamics, organizational structure (size, formalization, centralization), job-related tensions, leadership, supervisory behavior, morale and job satisfaction, alienation and anomie. Also includes chapters on conducting evaluation research, basic research design, methods and technique for collecting data, guide to statistical analysis, and proposal writing.

• Lester PE and Bishop LK (2000) Handbook of Tests and Measurement in Education and the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
  

  Content areas: alienation, change / innovation, climate, communication, conflict management, culture, decision making / problem solving, ethics, honesty / trust, interpersonal relations, job commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction, leadership, mentoring, morale, motivation, organizational assessment / effectiveness, organizational structure, power / authority / control, autonomy, role conflict, supervisory behavior, total quality management. Also includes measures of anxiety/frustration, dogmatism, self efficacy, self esteem, gender identification, stress/burnout.

• Bearden WO and Netemeyer RG (1999) Handbook of Marketing Scales: Multi-Item Measures for Marketing and Consumer Behavior Research, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  

  Content areas: job satisfaction, role perceptions / conflict, job burnout / tension, performance measures, control and leadership, organizational commitment, scales related to sales occupations, inter and intra-firm influence and power. Also includes measures of marketing and consumer behavior.

• Peterson NG, Mumford MC, Borman WC, Jeanneret PR and Fleishman EA (Eds.) (1999) An Occupational Information System For The 21st Century: The Development Of The O*NET. Washington, D.C.: APA Books.
  

  Content areas: include generalized work activity, work context: taxonomy and measurement of the work environment, organizational context, abilities, occupational interests and values, work styles, occupation-specific descriptors, occupational descriptor covariates, cross-domain analysis, occupational classification: using skills and generalized work activity to create job families.

• Rubin RB, Palmgreen P, and Sypher HE (Eds.) (1994) Communication Research Measures: A Sourcebook. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  

  Content areas: measures of organizational communication, including communication satisfaction, organizational communications scales and audits, conflict management, team building, group communication, mentoring, communication competence, communication load, communication style, leadership, and organizational commitment. Also includes measures of instructional communication, interpersonal communication and mass communication.

• Cook JD, Hepworth SJ, Wall TD and Warr PB (1981) The Experience of Work: A Compendium and Review of 249 Measures and Their Use. New York: Academic Press.
  

  Content areas: overall satisfaction, specific satisfactions, alienation and commitment, occupational mental health and ill heath, job involvement and motivation, work values beliefs and needs, perceptions of the job, work role, job content, organizational climate, leadership practices, work group properties.

• Van de Ven A. and Ferry D (1980). Measuring and Assessing Organizations. New York: Wiley.
  

  Content areas: introduction to organizational assessment, a process for assessing organizations, methodology in constructing and evaluating OAI (organizational assessment instruments), overall organizational context and structure, the context and design of organizational units, the context and design of jobs, external unit relationships, the inter-organizational field, the revised organizational assessment framework and instruments, glossary for the revised organization assessment instruments, OAI unit supervisor questionnaire, OAI unit member questionnaire, OAI focal unit questionnaire, OAI other unit questionnaire, computing structural indices of inter-unit networks.

• Price JL (1972) Handbook of Organizational Measurement. Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company.
  

  Content areas: absenteeism, administrative staff, alienation, autonomy, centralization, communication, complexity, consensus, coordination, dispersion, distributive justice, effectiveness, formalization, innovation, mechanization, motivation, bases of power, routinization, satisfaction, size, span of control, and succession.

• Bonjean CM, Hill RJ and McLemore SD (1967) Sociological Measurement – An Inventory of Scales and Indices. San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company.
  

  Content areas: achievement, achievement motivation, anomia and alienation, aspirations, assimilation, authoritarianism, authority, cohesion, complex organizations, conformity and deviance, consensus, crime and delinquency, informal relations, innovation and diffusion, interests, ethnocentrism, intergroup relations (including discrimination and stereotypes), job satisfaction and morale, leadership, occupational roles, small groups, social mobility, social participation, socioeconomic status (includes occupational ratings, prestige), status concern, and status consistency. Also includes community, marital adjustment and courtship, education, family, health, marital and family roles, mental abilities, neighborhood, social norms, personal adjustment, personality, political attitudes and behavior, religion, self image, societal characteristics, urban areas, and values.

Journal Articles

• DeMeuse, K. P. (1985). A Compendium of Frequently used Measures in Industrial / Organizational Psychology. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 23, 53-59.
  

  Content areas: employee alienation, employee needs (achievement, affiliation), group-level attitudes and perceptions, job involvement, job satisfaction, job / task complexity, leadership, organizational climate, organizational commitment, organizational communication, perceived stress, role ambiguity and conflict, union-related measures, attitudes towards female employees, cognitive complexity, locus of control, machiavellianism, protestant work ethic, self-esteem, social desirability, Type A personality.

Government Publications

• Bell D and Elias P (2003) The Definition, Classification and Measurement of Working Time Arrangements: A Survey of Issues with Examples from Practices in Four Countries. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 4. Geneva: International Labour Office. Available at:  http://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/2003/103B09_56_engl.pdf .
  

  Content areas: issues requiring statistics on working time arrangements, changes in working time arrangements (evidence of change, underlying factors, typology), statistics on working time arrangements (flexibility, shiftwork, homeworking, EU developments), potential improvements in national procedures (time of day statistics, weekly or monthly work patterns, flexible work arrangements, next steps).

Unpublished Volumes

• Robinson, J. P., Athanasiou, R., & Head, K. B. (1969). Measures of Occupational Attitudes and Occupational Characteristics. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
  

  Content areas: general job satisfaction scales, occupation-specific job satisfaction scales (managerial, scientist), satisfaction with specific job features, concepts related to job satisfaction (alienation, motivation, meaning), occupational values, leadership styles, other work-relevant attitudes (unionization, government work, older workers, disabled workers), vocational interest measures, occupational status measures (SES, occupational ratings, class identification), status inconsistency, occupational situs, social mobility, occupational similarity.