Abstract
We examine whether employees’ preferences for various job attributes are associated with their individual characteristics in ways that are in line with ‘hierarchy of needs’ theories. Using data from the fifth round of the European Social Survey, we observe the influence of socio-demographic and dispositional characteristics as well as socialization experiences on opinions regarding the importance of five different desirable job attributes. An item-by-item examination of the attributes (including ‘security’ and ‘offering a high income’) reveals that dispositional factors (measured using the battery of items in Schwartz’s theory of basic personal values) influence job attitudes in expected ways, but employees also tend to place more importance on attributes that concern them more directly. For example, while female employees care more about being able to combine work and family responsibilities, younger workers value training opportunities more highly than older ones. Regarding socialization experiences, we find that job security is more important for those who have been unemployed in the past. We interpret our findings to mean that ‘hierarchy of needs’ theories are valid in the context of job attitudes in the sense that the ranking of preferred job attributes is quite predictable once individual characteristics are accounted for.
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Notes
Short definitions for the ten basic values taken from Caprara et al. (2006) are as follows: Power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources. Achievement: personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards. Hedonism: pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself. Stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life. Self-direction: independent thought and action—choosing, creating, exploring. Universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature. Benevolence: preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact. Tradition: respect, commitment and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide the self. Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms. Security: safety, harmony and stability of society, of relationships and of self.
A chart depicting the circular structure of basic values can be found in Bilsky et al. (2011).
It is theorized that hedonism shares elements of both openness and self-enhancement, and it is usually left out of the construction of the higher-order values in various contexts (e.g. in Barnea and Schwartz 1998). We have also assumed the irrelevance of this value in the current analysis.
See Basabe and Ros (2005) for a comparison of several cultural value theories including those by Hofstede and Schwartz.
The data set is available at http://ess.nsd.uib.no/ess/round5/.
In a comprehensive cross-country and time-series study, Hagerty (1999) examines the relationship between quality-of-life indicators and measures of Maslow’s need levels. The results obtained exhibit significant agreement with Maslow’s predictions regarding the sequentiality in the fulfillment of needs.
Lacy et al. (1983) work with dependent variables constructed in exactly the same way, but they estimate multiple regression models instead of ordered probit.
The impact of unemployment in the past is not only social-psychological, but also has economic grounds since career interruptions make permanent re-entry into the labor market more difficult (Heckman and Borjas 1980).
The estimated models have low pseudo R 2 values meaning that the independent variables fail to explain much of the variation in the dependent variables. However, as Caplan (2001) notes, low R 2 values are typical of these types of models, and they should be interpreted to mean that the outcome variables depend more heavily on personal idiosyncracies.
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Başlevent, C., Kirmanoğlu, H. Do Preferences for Job Attributes Provide Evidence of ‘Hierarchy of Needs’?. Soc Indic Res 111, 549–560 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0019-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0019-7