Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 1982 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1982, Vol. 67, No. 3, 341-349 0021-9010/82/6703-0341S00.75

Measurement of Job and Work Involvement

Rabindra N. Kanungo
Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

In view of the recent distinction between job and work involvement, this study
developed separate measures of the two constructs using three different tech-
niques: semantic differential, questionnaire, and graphic. The conceptual basis
of the two constructs and the reasons for developing new measures of the con-
structs are discussed. Data collected from a heterogeneous sample of 703 em-
ployees are analyzed to establish reliability, construct validity, and criterion-
related validity of each measure. Relative effectiveness of the three techniques
used to measure the constructs are examined. Results reveal that questionnaire
and graphic measures pass the tests of reliability and validity. Semantic differ-
ential measures, however, have questionable validity for measuring work involve-
ment. Possible uses of these new measures in future research are suggested.
Past psychological research (Lodahl & job," represent a person's psychological
Kejner, 1965; Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977; identification with the job. Other items, such
Saleh & Hosek, 1976) in the area of job as, "sometimes I'd like to kick myself for the
involvement is fraught with problems of con- mistakes I make in my work," represent a
ceptual ambiguities and measurement in- person's intrinsic motivation at work for ful-
adequacies. The major source of conceptual filling self-esteem needs.
ambiguity lies in the use of the construct Second, in dealing with the construct, re-
"job involvement" that carries excess mean- searchers have confused the issue of identi-
ing. Consequently, the techniques developed fying the antecedent conditions of job in-
to measure the construct suffer from the volvement with the issue of identifying the
problems of construct validity. Without ad- state of job involvement and its subsequent
equate construct validity, inferences based effects (Kanungo, 1979). Saleh and Hosek's
on the data on job involvement provided by (1976) scale, for instance, contains three
existing instruments are often misleading categories of items that describe (a) pre-
and difficult to interpret. sumed causal conditions of job involvement
The excess meanings of the job involve- (e.g., "how much chance do you get to do
ment construct can be identified in four dif- things your own way?"), (b) presumed ef-
ferent ways. First, past conceptualizations fects of job involvement (e.g., "I avoid taking
of the construct have confused the issue of on extra duties and responsibilities in my
job involvement with the issue of intrinsic work"), and (c) the state of job involvement
motivation on the job (Gorn & Kanungo, itself (e.g., "the most important things I do
1980; Kanungo, 1981). The most widely are involved with my job"). A third way in
used measure of job involvement, developed which the construct carried extra meaning
by Lodahl and Kejner (1965), combines can be seen in the description of job involve-
items representing the two issues. Some ment as both a cognitive and a positive
items, such as, "I live, eat and breathe my emotional state of the individual. Lodahl and
Kejner's (1965) scale contains items that
represent these two meanings. Items such as,
This study was supported by a grant from the For- "the major satisfaction in my life comes
mation des Chercheures et d'Action Concertee, Gov- from my job" and "the most important
ernment of Quebec. I wish to thank Rajan Natarajan things that happen to me involve my work,"
for his assistance in data collection and analysis. are descriptions of affective and cognitive
Requests for reprints should be sent to Rabindra N.
Kanungo, Faculty of Management, Samuel Bronfman states, respectively.
Building, McGill University, 1001 Sherbrooke Street Finally, earlier conceptualizations of job
West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1G5. involvement have failed to distinguish two
341
342 RABINDRA N. KANUNGO
different contexts in which an individual can
show personal involvement (Kanungo, 1981).
The two contexts are (a) specific or partic-
ular job context and (b) generalized work
context. Involvement in a specific job is not
the same as involvement with work in gen-
eral. The former is a belief descriptive of the
present job and tends to be a function of how
much the job can satisfy one's present needs.
But involvement with work in general or the
centrality of work in one's life is a normative
belief about the value of work in one's life,
and it is more a function of one's past cul-
tural conditioning or socialization. Thus, job
involvement is a descriptive belief that is
contemporaneously caused whereas work in-
volvement is a normative belief that is his-
torically caused.
Job involvement as a specific belief re-
garding one's relationship with one's present
job is also different from organizational com-
mitment (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Bou-
lian, 1974), which refers to a general atti-
tude toward an organization as a whole.
Work involvement should also be distin-
guished from the Protestant Ethic. Belief in
the centrality of work may result from Prot-
estant-Ethic-type socialization, but the two
are not identical. Protestant Ethic may not
even be a necessary condition for work in-
volvement to develop. It is conceivable that
work involvement may result from socializa-
tion that is not of the Protestant Ethic type.
Researchers have confused work involve-
ment with the Protestant Ethic in the same
manner as they have confused job involve-
ment with intrinsic motivation. A lack of
clear conceptual distinction between job and
work involvement is reflected in the previ-
ously developed scales of both job involve-
ment (Lodahl & Kejner, 1965; Saleh &
Hosek, 1976) and work values (Blood, 1969).
These scales have used the words job and
work interchangably, and one is not sure
whether the respondents view them synon-
ymously. The validity and usefulness of a
conceptual distinction between involvement
in a particular job and identification with
work in general have been demonstrated re-
cently by Gorn and Kanungo (1980).
In view of the above construct validity
problems that are associated with past re-
search, Kanungo (1979) argued for a refor-
mulation of the construct of involvement
that eliminates the problems of excess mean-
ing. According to such reformulation (Kan-
ungo, 1979, 1981), involvement either in the
context of a particular job or with work in
general can be viewed as a cognitive or belief
state of psychological identification. An in-
dividual's psychological identification with
a particular job (or with work in general)
in turn depends on (a) the saliency of his or
her needs (both extrinsic and intrinsic) and
(b) the perceptions he or she has about the
need-satisfying potentialities of the job (or
work). Viewed in this way, job involvement
and work involvement cannot be measured
with the existing instruments (Blood, 1969;
Lodahl & Kejner, 1965; Saleh & Hosek,
1976). This necessitates the development of
valid and reliable new measures of job and
work involvement for use in future research.
The present study is an attempt in this di-
rection.
Method
Item Constructions for Involvement Scales
For the purpose of obtaining distinct measures of spe-
cific job involvement and of general work involvement,
three different measurement formatsquestionnaire,
semantic differential (Osgood, Suci, & Tanncnbaum,
1957), and graphic techniqueswere used. Question-
naire items that directly reflected a cognitive state of
psychological identification were judged and compiled
by 10 graduate students after a thorough search of the
existing measures of involvement and alienation in both
the psychological and sociological literature (e.g., Blau-
ner, 1964; Clark, 1959; Dubin, 1956; Lodahl & Kejner,
1965; Saleh & Hosek, 1976; Wollack, Goodale, Wijting,
& Smith 1971). There was complete agreement by the
10 judges on 12 items for inclusion in the Job Involve-
ment Questionnaire (JIQ) and on 9 items for inclusion
in the Work Involvement Questionnaire (WIQ). For the
JIQ and WIQ items, 6-point agree-disagree response
formats were used. Subsequent items analyses resulted
in dropping 2 items from the JIQ and 3 items from the
WIQ scales because of their low interitem and item-
total correlations. Thus the final scales contained 10 JIQ
items (i.e., "The most important things that happen to
me involve my present job"; "To me, my job is only a
small part of who I am"; "I am very much involved
personally in my job"; "I live, eat and breathe my job";
"Most of my interests are centered around my job";
"I have very strong ties with my present job which would
be very difficult to break"; "Usually I feel detached from
my job"; "Most of my personal life goals are job-ori-
ented"; "I consider my job to be very central to my
existence"; "I like to be absorbed in my job most of the
time"). In addition, there were 6 WIQ items (i.e., "The
 MEASUREMENT OF JOB AND WORK INVOLVEMENT 343

most important things that happen in life involve work"; in three different universities in Montreal. These em-
"Work is something people should get involved in most ployees belonged to various industrial and governmental
of the time"; "Work should be only a small part of one's organizations in and around Montreal. The respondents
life"; "Work should be considered central to life"; "In were told that participation in the study was optional
my view, an individual's personal life goals should be and that they could be assured of the confidentiality of
work-oriented"; "Life is worth living only when people the data. The questionnaire was completed during the
get absorbed in work"). class hour in groups of varying sizes ranging from 40
Another six graduate students, using available liter- to 100. The final count revealed that 703 completed
ature and dictionaries for synonyms and antonyms, questionnaires (184 in French and 519 in English) were
made an extensive search for key words that clearly returned.
reflected the notion of psychological identification. This A parallel study was conducted in two of the univer-
process yielded 11 bipolar items on which all the six sities to establish the test-retest reliabilities of the mea-
judges agreed. These items with a 7-point response for- sures included in the questionnaire. One evening exten-
mat were used to construct Job Involvement Semantic sion course (with approximately 50-55 full-time
Differential (JISD) and Work Involvement Semantic employees enrolled in it) that was offered in each of the
Differential (WISD) scales. Three items were rejected universities was used for this purpose. The questionnaire
from each scale on the basis of interitem and item-total was administered twice, 3 weeks apart. The respondents
correlations. Thus each scale contained 8 items (involv- were asked to put their identification numbers on the
ing-noninvolving; important-unimportant; fundamen- questionnaire each time they were tested. Matching of
tal-trivial; essential-nonessential; identifled-not iden- identification members revealed that data from 63 re-
tified; attached-detached; integrated-nonintegrated; pondents could be used in the test-retest analysis.
united-disunited). Finally, three graphic items repre-
senting the notion of psychological identification were
prepared for use in each of the job and work contexts. Results
Two of these items were finally selected after item anal-
yses. In one item, two circles representing self and job Demographic Data
or work were presented with varying degrees of overlap
(no overlap to complete overlap). In the other item, a Both the samples in the original and in the
human figure (representing self) and an office desk (rep- test-retest study were heterogeneous in com-
resenting job or work) were presented with varying dis- position. In the original sample, employees
tances between them. These two items formed the Job belonging to public and private sector or-
Involvement Graphic (JIG) scale in the job context and
the Work Involvement Graphic (WIG) scale in the work ganizations were equally represented. Al-
context. Both JIG and WIG items used a 7-point re- most half of the employees came from large
sponse format. organizations (with more than 700 employ-
ees) and the other half came from small- or
Design of the Questionnaire medium-size organizations. Fifty-seven per-
1 cent of the respondents were male and 43%
A questionnaire containing three parts was designed
for the purpose of testing the reliability and validity of were female, with a mean age of 28 years
the newly constructed job and work involvement scales. (SD = 6.66) for the total sample. There were
Part 1 of the questionnaire contained JISD, JIQ, and 37% French Canadian and 41% English
JIG scale items. In addition, this part included two other Canadian subjects, and the remaining 22%
instruments. One instrument measured the perceived belonged to other ethnic groups. Forty per-
importance of 15 job outcomes by asking the respon-
dents' satisfaction with the same 15 job outcomes and cent of the respondents were married, and
overall satisfaction with their present job. The validity 60% were single. Their education levels
and reliability of these two instruments were established ranged from high school to advanced grad-
in earlier studies (e.g., Corn & Kanungo, 1980; Kan- uate degrees, and their income levels ranged
ungo, Gorn, & Dauderis, 1976), and the instruments from less than $10,000 to more than $40,000
were used to test the criterion-related concurrent valid-
ity of the newly developed involvement scales. Part 2 per year. Almost half the sample had or-
of the questionnaire contained the three work involve- ganizational tenure of 2 to 5 years. Of the
ment scales (WISD, WIQ, and WIG). Part 3 of the other half of the sample, approximately 20%
questionnaire was designed to determine the demo- had less than 2 years, and 30% had more
graphic characteristics of the respondents.
than 5 years of organizational experience.
The test-retest sample closely resembled the
Subjects and Procedure original sample in its composition.
The questionnaire was written in both French and
English following the translation-retranslation proce-
dure (Brislin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973) and was
1
administered to 900 full-time French- and English- The complete questionnaire is available upon re-
speaking employees enrolled in evening extension courses quest from the author.
344 RABINDRA N. KANUNGO

Table 1 Dimensionality of the scales. The scores

Reliability Coefficients for Involvement and on job and work involvement items were fac-
Job Satisfaction Scales tor analyzed separately for each of the three
Coefficient methods (semantic differential, question-
naire, and graphic). The principal-compo-
Internal Test- nent analysis followed by a varimax rotation
Scale consistency retest
was used to arrive at factor solutions. Each
Job involvement analysis yielded two clear interpretable fac-
JISD .81 .74 tors of Job Involvement and Work Involve-
JIQ .87 .85 ment. For semantic differential items, the
JIG .70 .82 first factor loaded highly on WISD items
Work involvement (item loadings ranged from .64 to .81 for
WISD and from .01 to .15 for JISD), and
WISD ,83 .78
WIQ .75 .67 the second factor loaded highly on JISD
WIG .68 .67 items (item loadings ranged from ,42 to .81
for JISD and from .01 to .15 WISD). The
Job satisfaction two factors, with eigenvalues of 5.64 and
15-item scale .89 .73 3.40, explained 56.5% of the total variance
Overall job satisfaction (and 93.3% of common variance). For ques-
(single item) .87
tionnaire items, the first factor reflected job
Note. Internal consistency (Cronbach a) coefficients are involvement (item loadings ranged from .44
based on data from 703 respondents. Test-retest coef- to .77 for JIQ and from .07 to . 17 for WIQ)
ficients are based on data from 63 respondents. JISD = and the second factor reflected work involve-
Job Involvement Semantic Differential scale; JIQ = Job
Involvement Questionnaire; JIG = Job Involvement ment (item loadings ranged from .40 to .73
Graphic scale; WISD = Work Involvement Semantic for WIQ and from .00 to .31 for JIQ). The
Differential; WIQ = Work Involvement Questionnaire; two factors, with eigenvalues of 5.15 and
WIG = Work Involvement Graphic scale. 2.39, explained 47.2% of the total variance
(and 93.6% of the common variance). Fi-
Empirical Properties of the Involvement nally, for the graphic items, again Job In-
Scales volvement and Work Involvement emerged
as the first (item loadings were .95 to .70 for
Item analyses. The 8 items included in JIG and .09 and .19 for WIG) and the sec-
the JISD and WISD scales had median ond (item loadings were ,70 and .89 for WIG
item-total correlations of .75 (range = .64- and .21 and .06 for JIG) factors, respec-
.82) and .74 (range = .71-.82), respectively. tively. The eigenvalues were 2.11 and 1.23,
The median item-total correlation for the 10 explaining 83.5% of the total variance (and
items in the JIQ scale was .68 (range = .59- 100% of the common variance). Following
.74). For the 6 items in the WIQ scale, the separate analyses, item scores from all six
median item-total correlation was .67 scales put together were again factor ana-
(range = .54-.74). The intercorrelations for lyzed. In spite of the introduction of method
items in the JIG and WIG scales were .70 variance, a two-factor solution clearly re-
and .68, respectively. The means and stan- vealed differential factor loadings on job and
dard deviations for each of the six involve- work involvement items. The first factor
ment scales were as follows: JISD: M = loadings ranged from .70 to .40 on job and
23.94, SD = 10.07; WISD: M = 20.30, SD from .14 to .03 on work involvement items.
= 8.28; JIG: M= 31.31, 57)= 10.61; WIQ: The second factor loadings ranged from .79
M= 20.70, SD= 5.97; JIG: M= 8.39; to .34 for work and from .25 to .00 for job
SD = 3.01; and WIG: M = 9.04, SD = 2.69. involvement items. The eigenvalues were
In the case of the JISD and WISD, lower 9.68 and 5.18, explaining 41.3% of the total
scores represented higher involvement. For variance. These results clearly suggest dis-
all other scales higher scores represented tinctiveness and unidimensionality of job
higher involvement. and work involvement constructs.
 MEASUREMENT OF JOB AND WORK INVOLVEMENT 345

Reliabilities of the scales. The internal
consistency and test-retest reliabilities of the
six involvement scales and the job satisfac-
tion measures are presented in Table 1. The
reliability coefficients ranged from .67 to .89,
suggesting that both reliability of repeated
measurements and of internal consistency of
items were adequate for these scales. The
correlation between the two job satisfaction
measures as parallel form tests was .78.
Convergent and discriminant validity of
involvement scales. Intercorrelations among
the six involvement scales are presented in
Table 2 in the form of a validational matrix
(Campbell & Fiske, 1959). From the valid-
ity diagonals (boxed correlations in Table 2)
it can be seen that all the correlations were
statistically significant (p < .01), suggesting
convergent validity of the scales. However,
the magnitude of the correlations suggest
that convergent validities of questionnaire
and graphic scales measuring job involve-
ment (r = .80) and work involvement (r =
.69) were quite high. By comparison, se-
mantic differential scales showed a moderate
to very weak relationship to other scales
measuring job and work involvement. The
JISD scale showed a moderate relationship
to both the JIQ (r = -.33) and the JIG
(r = -.44) scales. The WISD scale showed
a very weak relationship to both the WIQ
(r = -.12) and the WIG (r = -.24) scales.
Assessment of discriminant validities re-
quires that monotrait-heteromethod values
(agreement between different ways of mea-
suring the same trait) should exceed the het-
erotrait-heteromethod values (agreement
between different traits measured in differ-
ent ways). Table 2 shows that every boxed
correlation representing a rnonotrait-hetero-
method value is higher than the adjacent
noncircled correlation representing a het-
erotrait-heteromethod value.
A second but more stringent criterion for
the assessment of discriminant validity re-
quires that monotrait-heteromethod val-
ues should exceed heterotrait-monomethod
(agreement between different traits mea-
sured the same way) values. This would in-
dicate whether common trait variance is
greater than common method variance. This
criterion was satisfied in 67% of the cases.
A closer inspection of Table 2 reveals that
the semantic differential format did not meet
this criterion, particularly in measuring work
involvement. The validity of the WISD scale
is questionable because the correlations be-
tween the WISD and the WIQ and WIG
involvement measures (r& = -.12 and -.24,
respectively) did not exceed the correlations

Table 2
Multitrait-Muhimethod Matrix for Job and Work Involvement Scales
Semantic
differential Questionnaire Graphic
Scale JISD WISD JIQ WIQ JIG WIG
Semantic differential ^
JISD ^\
WISD 1 .28*\^
Questionnaire
JIQ [~-.33*| -.08
WIQ .01 | -.12* | .29*""-\
Graphic
JIG
WIG
| -.44* |
.02
-.09
Ljl-24*J
.so* i .21* r\.
.33* [~69*n L-36*\^
Note. N = 703. Correlations enclosed in boxes represent validity diagonal or monotrait-heteromethod values;
correlations enclosed in triangles represent heterotrait-monomethod values. The remaining correlations represent
heterotrait-heteromethod values. Negative correlations are due to the reverse scoring of scales using semantic
differential format. JISD = Job Involvement Semantic Differential scale; WISD = Work Involvement Semantic
Differential scale. JIQ = Job Involvement Questionnaire; WIQ = Work Involvement Questionnaire; JIG = Job
Involvement Graphic scale; WIG = Work Involvement Graphic scale.
346 RABINDRA N. KANUNOO

Table 3 Method (R X M) interaction effect or the

Analysis of Variance of Multitrait- degree of disagreement on methods by re-
Multimethod Matrix spondents. The three effects corresponded to
VC
an estimate of overall convergent validity,
Source df MS F VC index discriminant validity, and method bias, re-
spectively. The results of the ANOVA are pre-
Respondent (R) 702 2.94 4.45* .33 .46 sented in Table 3. Both the main effect of
R X Trait 702 .78 1.18* .31 .44 R and the R X T interaction effect were sta-
R X Method 1, 404 .48 .72 .19 .33
tistically significant (p < .01), suggesting
Error 1, 404 .66 ,38 confirmatory evidence for convergent and
discriminant validities of the instruments.
Note. VC = variance component.
*p < .01.
Following the suggestion of Kavanagh et
al. (1971), the variance component and vari-
ance component indexes for each of the three
between the WISD and the JISD (/ = .28). effects were also calculated to compare their
In the case of the JISD scale, on the other relative impacts in the study. The results are
hand, the validity criterion is met because also presented in Table 3. Although the R X
correlations between the JISD and the JIQ M interaction (method bias) effect was not
and JIG scales (rs = -.33 and -.44, respec- statistically significant, its variance compo-
tively) were higher than the correlation be- nent index showed that its relative impact
tween the JISD and the WISD (r = .28). was not too small to ignore, presumably due
However, because of the moderate relation- to the use of semantic differential formats.
ship of the JISD with the other two job in- Separate estimations of variance compo-
volvement measures, its use should be dis- nents and variance component indexes for
couraged. matrices with and without semantic differ-
The convergent and discriminant validi- ential scales are presented in Table 4. The
ties of the questionnaire and graphic scales results clearly suggest that method bias and
seem to be adequate. In fact, if one removes error components were substantially re-
the two semantic differential scales (JISD duced; convergence and discriminant valid-
and WISD) from the matrix in Table 2, the ities were clearly enhanced when semantic
picture becomes clear. For the two job (JIQ differential scales were eliminated from the
and JIG) and the two work (WIQ and WIG) matrix.
involvement scales, the monotrait-hetero- Criterion-related concurrent validity of
method correlations were .80 and .69, re- the scales. The concurrent validity of the
spectively. These were substantially higher job and work involvement scales was ex-
than the monomethod-heterotrait correla- amined by testing three theoretical predic-
tions of .36 and .29 and heteromethod-het-
erotrait correlations of .33 and .21, respec- Table 4
tively. Comparison of Methods Used to Measure
The multitrait and multimethod matrix Involvement
presented in Table 2 was further reanalyzed
in a confirmatory fashion using the analysis Scale
of variance (ANOVA) three-way classifica- SD and SD and Questionnaire
tion model suggested by Kavanagh, Mack- questionnaire graphic and graphic
inney, and Wolins (1971). In this model, the
purpose of the analysis was to estimate three VC VC VC
effects: (a) respondent (R) effect or the de- Source VC index VC index VC index
gree to which the alternative methods and Respondent (R) .25 .32 .33 .45 .53 .71
traits yield similar involvement scores or R X Trait .18 .26 .29 .42 .44 .67
agreement within respondents; (b) Respon- R X Method .24 .32 .27 .40 .05 .19
dent X Trait (R X T) interaction effect or Error .51 .39 .21
the degree of rated discriminations on traits
by respondents; and (c) Respondent X Note. SD = semantic differential; VC = variance component.
 MEASUREMENT OF JOB AND WORK INVOLVEMENT 347

tions derived from the motivational frame- Table 5

work proposed by Kanungo (1979, 1981). Correlation of Involvement Scales With Job
First, it has been suggested that involvement Satisfaction Measures
in one's present job stems primarily from the Job satisfaction Overall job
perception of need-satisfying potential of the Scale scale satisfaction
job, whereas involvement with work in gen-
eral is more a matter of past socialization. JISD -.27* -.56*
Thus it was expected that measures of job WISD -.01 -.OS
/(700) 5.96* 12.79*
involvement compared to measure of work
involvement would be more strongly asso- JIQ .57* .43*
ciated with measures of job satisfaction. WIQ .12* .04
((700) 12.18* 9.64*
Second, it has been proposed (Gorn &
Kanungo, 1980; Kanungo, 1979, 1981) that JIG .65* .55*
job involvement is more a function of sat- WIG .24* .06
((700) 12.61* 13.94*
isfaction of salient needs on the job. Thus
it was expected that the job involvement Note. JISD = Job Involvement Semantic Differential
measures would be more strongly associated scale; WISD = Work Involvement Semantic Differen-
with the satisfaction of salient rather than tial scale; JIQ = Job Involvement Questionnaire; WIQ =
Work Involvement Questionnaire; JIG = Job Involve-
nonsalient needs. This pattern of relation- ment Graphic scale; WIG = Work Involvement Graphic
ships was not expected in the case of work scale.
involvement because work involvement is a * p < .01.
culturally conditioned normative belief and
is not directly dependent on present job sat- ment is a function of salient need satisfac-
isfaction. tion, was tested in the following manner. The
Finally, it has been argued that employees precetved importance rankings of the 15 job
with salient extrinsic needs are as likely to factors were analyzed to determine the sa-
be involved in their jobs as employees with liency of needs of the respondents. For every
salient intrinsic needs, provided they have respondent, salient need was defined as the
equal levels of job satisfaction (Gorn & Kan- two job outcomes that were ranked by the
ungo, 1980). Thus, controlling for the levels respondent as 1st and 2nd in order of im-
of job satisfaction, one would not expect any portance. The nonsalient need was defined
difference between extrinsic and intrinsic as the two job outcomes that were ranked
oriented employees in their job involvement, by the respondent as 14th and 15th in im-
On the same basis, however, it would be dif- portance. The respondent's satisfaction scores
ficult to predict how the two groups would on the two salient job outcomes were added
react to work involvement measures. As to represent a single score for salient need
mentioned before, work involvement is not satisfaction. Likewise, the respondent's sat-
dependent on present job satisfaction. isfaction scores on the two nonsalient job
It may be recalled that the questionnaire outcomes were added to represent a single
used in this study included a 15-item job score for nonsalient need satisfaction. Each
satisfaction scale and a single-item overall of the six involvement scale scores were then
job satisfaction index. In order to examine correlated with the salient and nonsalient
the relationship of job satisfaction with job need satisfaction scores. The results are pre-
and work involvement, the six involvement sented in Table 6. As expected, the job in-
scales were correlated with the two measures volvement measures correlated more strongly
of satisfaction (results are shown in Table with salient than with nonsalient need sat-
5). Tests of difference between the depen- isfaction. This pattern, however, was not ob-
dent correlations (McNemar, 1969, p. 158) served for the work involvement measures.
clearly supported the first prediction that job The third prediction regarding the job in-
satisfaction measures have a stronger rela- volvement of intrinsic and extrinsic oriented
tionship to job involvement than to work in- respondents was tested by following a pro-
volvement (see Table 5 for t values). cedure suggested by Gorn and Kanungo
The second prediction, that job involve- (1980). A group of intrinsic (n = 76) and
348 RABINDRA N. KANUNGO

Table 6 work involvement proposed by previous re-

Correlation of Involvement Scores With Salient
and Nonsalient Need Satisfaction
Salient Nonsalient
need need
Scale satisfaction satisfaction
JISD -.24* -.12*
JIQ .49* .31*
JIG .56* .32*
WISD -.02 -.07
WIQ .10 .10
WIG .18* .16*
Note. JISD = Job Involvement Semantic Differential
scale; JIQ = Job Involvement Questionnaire; JIG = Job
Involvement Graphic scale; WISD = Work Involvement
Semantic Differential scale; WIQ = Work Involvement
Questionnaire; WIG = Work Involvement Graphic
scale.
* p < .01.
a group of extrinsic ( = 42) respondents
were chosen on the basis of their perceived
importance of job outcome rankings. Each
member of the intrinsic group perceived the
two intrinsic outcomesinteresting nature
of work and responsibilityas being the two
most important job outcomes. Each member
of the extrinsic group, on the other hand,
perceived the two extrinsic outcomesmoney
and securityas the two most important job
outcomes. The choice of these outcomes to
represent intrinsic and extrinsic needs de-
pended on two criteria. First, these outcomes
are clearly distinguishable as intrinsic and
extrinsic outcomes; second, within the in-
trinsic and extrinsic categories, these out-
comes were cited most frequently in the
overall sample as the first or second ranking
job outcome.
Analysis of covariance was performed sep-
arately on scores obtained from each of the
six involvement scales, treating job satisfac-
tion score (on the 15-item scale) as the co-
variate. The results revealed nonsignificant
F values (p > .05) in each case. This con-
firms the expectation that when controlling
for job satisfaction, job involvement of in-
trinsic and extrinsic individuals will not
differ.
Discussion
This study lends considerable support for
the conceptual distinction between job and
searchers (Gorn & Kanungo, 1980; Wollack
et al, 1971) and provides refinements in the
definition and measurement of involvement
in the two contexts. The results reveal that
/(700) all three job involvement scales and two of
3.06* the work involvement scales (WIQ and
5.47* WIG) have satisfactory psychometric prop-
7.21* erties. The scales have reasonable levels of
.05 internal consistency and test-retest reliabil-
.00 ity. They seem to pass the tests of unidi-
.51 mensionality and of convergent and discrim-
inant validity. The tests of criterion-related
concurrent validity of these measures also
add to their strength.
This study explored the use of three dif-
ferent formats for measuring job and
work involvement. Previous researchers have
mainly used the questionnaire format, but
for cross-cultural and comparative research
use of other formats such as graphic or pic-
torial techniques may be more useful. Re-
sults of this study show that the two graphic
scales (JIG and WIG) correlate highly with
their respective questionnaire scales (JIQ
and WIG), suggesting that the former can
easily act as substitute for the latter. For the
comprehension of the construct, graphic
scales (as opposed to questionnaires) de-
mand very little linguistic competence of the
respondent. Hence, they might be more use-
ful in cross-cultural and comparative re-
search on involvement. They can also be
more effective when administered to less ed-
ucated samples, or when time considerations
do not allow administration of longer ques-
tionnaires.
In contrast to the graphic and question-
naire formats, the use of the semantic dif-
ferential format, particularly the WISD
scale, seems to have questionable validity.
Posttest interviews of some respondents re-
vealed that they found it difficult to relate
to the abstract 7-point scales using words
such as fundamental-trivial and essential-
nonessential. Evaluating their present jobs
in terms of these scales was relatively less
difficult than evaluating the generalized no-
tion of work. This suggests that the semantic
differential format should be used with cau-
tion even when measuring involvement in the
present job context. Perhaps its usage should
be limited to only highly educated samples
 MEASUREMENT OF JOB AND WORK INVOLVEMENT
and in very specific contexts (Edwards &
Waters, 1980).
The new scales for measuring job and
work involvement can be used in future re-
search to achieve several objectives. First,
studies that aim at exploring the nature of
job and work involvement within organiza-
tions and at identifying the antecedent and
consequent conditions can use these instru-
ments. Second, the instruments can be used
in studies that attempt to relate alienation
and involvement in different spheres of life,
such as work, family, and community. Third,
tests of theoretical predictions derived from
existing formulations on alienation and in-
volvement (e.g., Kanungo, 1979) can be con-
ducted more effectively with the use of these
scales. Finally, the use of these scales can
establish more meaningfully the cross-cul-
tural validity and generalizability of findings
related to job and work involvement.
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