Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: In recent years, psychological well-being has emerged as an area of great importance. Whilst \nmuch research has been conducted to investigate the effects of personal and environmental \nfactors on well-being, very little research has examined the combined effects of many factors on \nwell-being. There exists in the literature a need for the development and testing of models which \nconsider the combined influence of many features on well-being. \nThe primary aim of this study was to test a model of employee well-being and its determinants \ndeveloped by Warr (1999).Whilst there is much theoretical support for this model, to date it does \nnot appear to have been empirically tested. The model shows that the three dimensions of jobspecific \nwell-being (job satisfaction; anxiety-comfort; depression-enthusiasm) are affected by \nsocio-demographic factors, individual factors and features of the environment. Affective \ndisposition was used as the individual factor in this study, and the 12 features of work included \nin Warr’s (1999) Vitamin Model were used as the environmental features. The 12 features are: \nopportunity for personal control, opportunity for skill use, externally generated goals, task \nvariety, environmental clarity, contact with others, availability of money, physical security, \nvalued social position, supportive supervision, career outlook, and equity. The sociodemographic \nfeatures which were examined in this study are age, gender, marital status, \neducation, tenure and race. A second aim of this study was to determine the linearity of the \nrelationships between the 12 job features and well-being. \nData was collected by means of a questionnaire which was distributed to the employees of a \nlarge call centre in Johannesburg. The questionnaire consisted of a demographical questionnaire, \nWarr, Cook, and Wall’s (1979) measure of Global Job Satisfaction to measure the first axis of \nwell-being, Van Katwyk, Fox, Spector and Kelloway’s (2000) Job-Related Affective Wellbeing \nScale to measure the second and third axes of wellbeing, Warr’s (1999) 26 Features of a Good or \nBad Job to measure the twelve job features, and Watson, Clark and Tellegen’s (1988) Positive \nand Negative Affect Schedule to measure affective disposition. The final sample consisted of \n135 respondents. \niii \nThe results of this study indicate that affective disposition and job features affect well-being. All \nof the job features except externally generated goals were significantly correlated with wellbeing, \nwith the strongest correlations being found for career outlook and equity. The only \nsignificant correlation that was found for demographic features was the relationship between \nmarital status and affective disposition. Thus the component of Warr’s (1999) model which \nillustrates that demographic features influence affective disposition and job features was not \nsupported. The finding that race explains a large amount of the variance in axis 2 of well-being \nindicates that, contrary to what is proposed by Warr’s (1999) model, demographic features may \nhave a direct influence on well-being. Overall, equity explained the greatest amount of variance \nin the first and second axes of well-being, and career outlook explained the greatest amount of \nvariance in the third axis of well-being. It was not possible to identify any curvilinear \nrelationships between job features and well-being.
Author: Mandy Unterslak
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2154775603