Using SPSS to Understand Research and Data Analysis.

• 4.5b Defining & Measuring Work Motives

Research in organizations indicates that productivity (and leadership potential) can also be understood in terms of the relative importance of various needs people strive to satisfy on the job. Examples of work motives include achievement needs (the desire to accomplish goals and be recognized for accomplishments), affiliation needs (the desire for rewarding interactions with co-workers) dominance needs (the desire to exert power and influence on others).

Steers and Braunstein (1976) developed a measure of these work motives. Respondents indicate how frequently each of several behaviors relevant to satisfying the above needs applies to their behavior on the job. See Table 4.3 for examples of work behaviors reflecting these needs.

Participants rate themselves on each behavior using a scale from 1 (never true) to 7 (always true). Assume that you have obtained self-ratings from EZ employees on five behaviors relevant to each of the above three areas of work motivation. We will simply name these variables ach1 through ach5 (achievement needs), aff1 through aff5 (affiliation needs) and dom1 through dom5 (dominance needs).

Scores on each of these 15 work behaviors are as follows:

• 1 = Never True of Me (meaning a low level of that need)
• 7 = Always True of Me (meaning a high level of that need)

You might take a moment to think about the possible relationships between these work motivation dimensions and the previous variables. For example, it might be that task-oriented leaders tend to score high on achievement needs, while relations-oriented leaders score high on affiliation needs.

Cultural stereotypes exist regarding differences between men and women in the above needs, so you might think about what the results will show regarding gender and sex-role identity differences in needs. Again, these issues will be addressed in later chapters via the various statistical procedures you will learn to conduct using SPSS.