research paper on work attitude

A Review on Work Engagement, Attitude Towards Change and Performance

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• First Online: 04 January 2024
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• Hery Syahrial 6 ,
• Miftahuddin 6 ,
• Sunaryo 7 &
• Ahmad Rafiki 6  

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• The original version of the chapter has been revised: The chapter author Sunaryo's affiliation has been updated. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42511-0_56

This chapter aims to elaborate the root of research on work engagement, attitude towards change and performance. The study adopts content analysis technique where various sources are referred including reports, official documents and research articles. The two factors were crucial and have impact to the performance. It is proven that the number of researches on work engagement, attitude towards change and performance is increasing, while reputable affiliations were came out with quality articles as well as most developed countries are concern on the three mentioned factors. All information in this chapter are valuable for strategic planning and initiatives.

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Change history

19 may 2024.

A correction has been published.

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Syahrial, H., Miftahuddin, Sunaryo, Rafiki, A. (2023). A Review on Work Engagement, Attitude Towards Change and Performance. In: Bexheti, A., Abazi-Alili, H., Dana, LP., Ramadani, V., Caputo, A. (eds) Economic Recovery, Consolidation, and Sustainable Growth. ISCBE 2023. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42511-0_42

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement: the mediating role of job involvement.

• Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

We conducted an empirical study aimed at identifying and quantifying the relationship between work characteristics, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational policies and procedures in the transition economy of Serbia, South Eastern Europe. The study, which included 566 persons, employed by 8 companies, revealed that existing models of work motivation need to be adapted to fit the empirical data, resulting in a revised research model elaborated in the paper. In the proposed model, job involvement partially mediates the effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment. Job satisfaction in Serbia is affected by work characteristics but, contrary to many studies conducted in developed economies, organizational policies and procedures do not seem significantly affect employee satisfaction.

1. Introduction

In the current climate of turbulent changes, companies have begun to realize that the employees represent their most valuable asset ( Glen, 2006 ; Govaerts et al., 2011 ; Fulmer and Ployhart, 2014 ; Vomberg et al., 2015 ; Millar et al., 2017 ). Satisfied and motivated employees are imperative for contemporary business and a key factor that separates successful companies from the alternative. When considering job satisfaction and work motivation in general, of particular interest are the distinctive traits of these concepts in transition economies.

Serbia is a country that finds itself at the center of the South East region of Europe (SEE), which is still in the state of transition. Here transition refers to the generally accepted concept, which implies economic and political changes introduced by former socialist countries in Europe and beyond (e.g., China) after the years of economic stagnation and recession in the 1980's, in the attempt to move their economy from centralized to market-oriented principles ( Ratkovic-Njegovan and Grubic-Nesic, 2015 ). Serbia exemplifies many of the problems faced by the SEE region as a whole, but also faces a number of problems uniquely related to the legacy of its past. Due to international economic sanctions, the country was isolated for most of the 1990s, and NATO air strikes, related to the Kosovo conflict and carried out in 1999, caused significant damage to the industry and economy. Transitioning to democracy in October 2000, Serbia embarked on a period of economic recovery, helped by the introduction of long overdue reforms, major inflows of foreign investment and substantial assistance from international funding institutions and others in the international community. However, the growth model on which Serbia and other SEE countries relied between 2001 and 2008, being based mainly on rapid capital inflows, a credit-fueled domestic demand boom and high current account deficit (above 20% of GDP in 2008), was not accompanied by the necessary progress in structural and institutional reforms to make this model sustainable ( Uvalic, 2013 ). The central issue of the transition process in Serbia and other such countries is privatization of public enterprises, which in Serbia ran slowly and with a number of interruptions, failures and restarts ( Radun et al., 2015 ). The process led the Serbian industry into a state of industrial collapse, i.e., deindustrialization. Today there are less than 400,000 employees working in the industry in Serbia and the overall unemployment rate exceeds 26% ( Milisavljevic et al., 2013 ). The average growth of Serbia's GDP in the last 5 years was very low, at 0.6% per year, but has reached 2.7% in 2016 ( GDP, 2017 ). The structure of the GDP by sector in 2015 was: services 60.5%, industry 31.4%, and agriculture 8.2% ( Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2017 ).

Taking into account the specific adversities faced by businesses in Serbia, we formulated two main research questions as a starting point for the analysis of the problem of work motivation in Serbia:

1. To what extent are the previously developed models of work motivation (such as the model of Locke and Latham, 2004 ) applicable to the transition economy and business practices in Serbia?

2. What is the nature of the relationships between different segments of work motivation (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement and work characteristics)?

The Hawthorn experiment, conducted in early 1930s ( Mayo, 1933 ), spurred the interest of organizational behavior researchers into the problem of work motivation. Although Hawthorn focused mainly on the problems of increasing the productivity and the effects of supervision, incentives and the changing work conditions, his study had significant repercussions on the research of work motivation. All modern theories of work motivation stem from his study.

Building on his work, Maslow (1943) published his Hierarchy of Needs theory, which remains to this day the most cited and well known of all work motivation theories according to Denhardt et al. (2012) . Maslow's theory is a content-based theory , belonging to a group of approaches which also includes the ERG Theory by Alderfer (1969) , the Achievement Motivation Theory, Motivation-Hygiene Theory and the Role Motivation Theory.

These theories focus on attempting to uncover what the needs and motives that cause people to act in a certain way, within the organization, are. They do not concern themselves with the process humans use to fulfill their needs, but attempt to identify variables which influence this fulfillment. Thus, these theories are often referred to as individual theories , as they ignore the organizational aspects of work motivation, such as job characteristics or working environment, but concentrate on the individual and the influence of an individual's needs on work motivation.

The approach is contrasted by the process theories of work motivation, which take the view that the concept of needs is not enough to explain the studied phenomenon and include expectations, values, perception, as important aspects needed to explain why people behave in certain ways and why they are willing to invest effort to achieve their goals. The process theories include: Theory of Work and Motivation ( Vroom, 1964 ), Goal Setting Theory ( Locke, 1968 ), Equity Theory ( Adams, 1963 ), as well as the The Porter-Lawler Model ( Porter and Lawler, 1968 ).

Each of these theories has its limitations and, while they do not contradict each other, they focus on different aspects of the motivation process. This is the reason why lately they have been several attempts to create an integrated theory of work motivation, which would encompass all the relevant elements of different basic theories and explain most processes taking place within the domain of work motivation, the process of motivation, as well as employee expectations ( Donovan, 2001 ; Mitchell and Daniels, 2002 ; Locke and Latham, 2004 ). One of the most influential integrated theories is the theory proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , which represents the basis for the study presented in this paper.

The model of Locke and Latham is show in Figure 1 . As the figure shows, it includes individual needs, values and motive, as well as personality. Incorporating the theory of expectations, the goal-setting theory and the social-cognitive theory, it focuses on goal setting, goals themselves and self-efficiency. Performance, by way of achievements and rewards, affects job satisfaction. The model defines relations between different constructs and, in particular, that job satisfaction is affected by the job characteristics and organizational policy and procedures and that it, in turn, affects organizational commitment and job involvement. Locke and Latham suggested that the theory they proposed needs more stringent empirical validation. In the study presented here, we take a closer look at the part of their theory which addresses the relationship between job satisfaction, involvement and organizational commitment. The results of the empirical study conducted in industrial systems suggest that this part of the model needs to be improved to reflect the mediating role of job involvement in the process through which job satisfaction influences organizational commitment.

Figure 1 . Diagram of the Latham and Locke model. The frame on the right indicates the part of the model the current study focuses on.

Job satisfaction is one of the most researched phenomena in the domain of human resource management and organizational behavior. It is commonly defined as a “pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of oneś job or job experiences” ( Schneider and Snyder, 1975 ; Locke, 1976 ). Job satisfaction is a key element of work motivation, which is a fundamental determinant of one's behavior in an organization.

Organizational commitment, on the other hand, represents the degree to which the employees identify with the organization in which they work, how engaged they are in the organization and whether they are ready leave it ( Greenberg and Baron, 2008 ). Several studies have demonstrated that there is a strong connection between organizational commitment, job satisfaction and fluctuation ( Porter et al., 1974 ), as well as that people who are more committed to an organization are less likely to leave their job. Organizational commitment can be thought of as an extension of job satisfaction, as it deals with the positive attitude that an employee has, not toward her own job, but toward the organization. The emotions, however, are much stronger in the case of organizational commitment and it is characterized by the attachment of the employee to the organization and readiness to make sacrifices for the organization.

The link between job satisfaction and organizational commitment has been researched relatively frequently ( Mathieu and Zajac, 1990 ; Martin and Bennett, 1996 ; Meyer et al., 2002 ; Falkenburg and Schyns, 2007 ; Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Morrow, 2011 ). The research consensus is that the link exists, but there is controversy about the direction of the relationship. Some research supports the hypothesis that job satisfaction predicts organizational commitment ( Stevens et al., 1978 ; Angle and Perry, 1983 ; Williams and Hazer, 1986 ; Tsai and Huang, 2008 ; Yang and Chang, 2008 ; Yücel, 2012 ; Valaei et al., 2016 ), as is the case in the study presented in this paper. Other studies suggest that the organizational commitment is an antecedent to job satisfaction ( Price and Mueller, 1981 ; Bateman and Strasser, 1984 ; Curry et al., 1986 ; Vandenberg and Lance, 1992 ).

In our study, job involvement represents a type of attitude toward work and is usually defined as the degree to which one identifies psychologically with one's work, i.e., how much importance one places on their work. A distinction should be made between work involvement and job involvement. Work involvement is conditioned by the process of early socialization and relates to the values one has wrt. work and its benefits, while job involvement relates to the current job and is conditioned with the one's current employment situation and to what extent it meets one's needs ( Brown, 1996 ).

2.1. Research Method

Based on the relevant literature, the results of recent studies and the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , we designed a conceptual model shown in Figure 2 . The model was then used to formulate the following hypotheses:

H0 - Work motivation factors, such as organizational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and work characteristics, represent interlinked significant indicators of work motivation in the organizations examined.

H1 - Work characteristics will have a positive relationship with job satisfaction.

H2 - Organizational policies and procedures will have a positive relationship with job satisfaction.

H3 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with job involvement.

H4 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with organizational commitment.

H5 - Job involvement will have a mediating role between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Figure 2 . The research model.

2.2. Participants

For the purpose of this study, 125 organizations from the Serbian Chamber of Commerce database ( www.stat.gov.rs ) were randomly selected to take part in this study. Each organization was contacted and an invitation letter was sent. Eight companies expressed a desire to take part and provided contact details for 700 of their employees. The questionnaire distribution process was conducted according to Dillman's approach ( Dillman, 2011 ). Thus, the initial questionnaire dissemination process was followed by a series of follow-up email reminders, if required. After a 2-month period, out of 625 received, 566 responses were valid. Therefore, the study included 566 persons, 235 males (42%) and 331 women (58%) employed by 8 companies located in Serbia, Eastern Europe.

The sample encompassed staff from both public (53%) and private (47%) companies in manufacturing (31%) and service (69%) industries. The companies were of varied size and had between 150 and 6,500 employees, 3 of them (37.5%) medium-sized (<250 employees) and 5 (62.5%) large enterprises.

For the sake of representativeness, the sample consisted of respondents across different categories of: age, years of work service and education. The age of the individuals was between 20 and 62 years of age and we divided them into 5 categories as shown in Table 1 . The table provides the number of persons per category and the relative size of the category wrt. to the whole sample. In the same table, a similar breakdown is shown in terms of years a person spent with the company, their education and the type of the position they occupy within the company (managerial or not).

Table 1 . Data sample characteristics.

2.3. Ethics Statement

The study was carried out in accordance with the Law on Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Serbia and the Codex of Professional Ethics of the University of Novi Sad. The relevant ethics committee is the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University of Novi Sad.

All participants took part voluntarily and were free to fill in the questionnaire or not.

The questionnaire included a cover sheet explaining the aim of the research, ways in which the data will be used and the anonymous nature of the survey.

2.4. Measures

This study is based on a self reported questionnaire as a research instrument.

The questionnaire was developed in line with previous empirical findings, theoretical foundations and relevant literature recommendations ( Brayfield and Rothe, 1951 ; Weiss et al., 1967 ; Mowday et al., 1979 ; Kanungo, 1982 ; Fields, 2002 ). We then conducted a face validity check. Based on the results, some minor corrections were made, in accordance with the recommendations provided by university professors. After that, the pilot test was conducted with 2 companies. Managers from each of these companies were asked to assess the questionnaire. Generally, there were not any major complaints. Most of the questions were meaningful, clearly written and understandable. The final research instrument contained 86 items. For acquiring respondents' subjective estimates, a five-point Likert scale was used.

The questionnaire took about 30 min to fill in. It consisted of: 10 general demographic questions, 20 questions from the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), 15 questions from the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), 10 questions from the Job Involvement Questionnaire (JIQ), 18 questions of the Brayfield-Rothe Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS), 6 questions of the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) and 7 additional original questions related to the rules and procedures within the organization.

The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), 20 items short form ( Weiss et al., 1967 ), was used to gather data about job satisfaction of participants. The MSQ – short version items, are rated on 5-points Likert scale (1 very dissatisfied with this aspect of my job, and 5 – very satisfied with this aspect of my job) with two subscales measuring intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction.

Organizational commitment was measured using The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). It is a 15-item scale developed by Mowday, Steers and Porter ( Mowday et al., 1979 ) and uses a 5-point Likert type response format, with 3 factors that can describe this commitment: willingness to exert effort, desire to maintain membership in the organization, and acceptance of organizational values.

The most commonly used measure of job involvement has been the Job Involvement Questionnaire (JIQ, Kanungo, 1982 ), 10-items scale designed to assess how participants feel toward their present job. The response scale on a 5-point scale varied between “strongly disagree/not applicable to me” to “strongly agree/fully applicable”.

The Brayfield and Rothe's 18-item Job Satisfaction Index (JSI, Brayfield and Rothe, 1951 ) was used to measure overall job satisfaction, operationalized on five-point Likert scale.

Psychometric analysis conducted showed that all the questionnaires were adequately reliable (Cronbach alpha > 0.7). The suitability of the data for factor analysis has been confirmed using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Test (see Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Basic psychometric characteristics of the instruments.

For further analysis we used summary scores for the different scales. Job satisfaction was represented with the overall score of MSQ, as the data analysis revealed a strong connection between the extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The overall score on the OCQ was used as a measure of organizational commitment, while the score on JDS was used to reflect job characteristics. The JSS and JIQ scales have been modified, by eliminating a few questions, in order to improve reliability and suitability for factor analysis.

Statistical analysis was carried out using the SPSS software. The SPSS Amos structural equation modeling software was used to create the Structural Equation Models (SEMs).

The data was first checked for outliers using box-plot analysis. The only outliers identified were related to the years of employment, but these seem to be consistent to what is expected in practice in Serbia, so no observations needed to be removed from the dataset.

3.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis

Although research dimensions were empirically validated and confirmed in several prior studies, to the best of our knowledge, the empirical confirmation of the research instrument (i.e., questionnaire) and its constituents in the case of Serbia and South-Eastern Europe is quite scarce. Furthermore, the conditions in which previous studies were conducted could vary between research populations. Also, such differences could affect the structure of the research concepts. Thus, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted in order to empirically validate the structure of research dimensions and to test the research instrument, within the context of the research population of South-Eastern Europe and Serbia.

Using the maximum likelihood method we identified four factors, which account for 67% of the variance present in the data. The scree plot of the results of the analysis is shown in Figure 3 . As the figure shows, we retained the factors above the inflection point.

Figure 3 . Scree plot of the EFA results.

The communalities for the variables loading into the factors are shown in Table 3 and the questions corresponding to our variables are listed in Table 4 . Initial communalities are estimates of the proportion of variance in each variable accounted for by all components (factors) identified, while the extraction communalities refer to the part of the variance explained by the four factors extracted. The model explains more of the variance then the initial factors, for all but the last variable.

Table 3 . Communalities.

Table 4 . Questions that build our constructs.

More detailed results of the EFA for the four factors, are shown in Table 5 . The unique loadings of specific items measured with the different questions in the questionnaire on the factors identified are shown in the pattern matrix (Table 6 ). As the table shows, each factor is loaded into by items that were designed to measure a specific construct and there are no cross-loadings. The first factor corresponds to job characteristics, second to job satisfaction, third to job involvement and the final to organizational commitment. The correlation between the factors is relatively low and shown in Table 7 .

Table 5 . Total variance explained by the dominant factors.

Table 6 . Pattern matrix for the factors identified.

Table 7 . Factor correlation matrix.

3.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis

In the next part of our analysis we used Structural Equation Modeling to validate and improve a part of the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) that focuses on work characteristics, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement.

Although the EFA suggest the existence of four, not five, dominant factors in the model, diverging from the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) , in our initial experiments we used their original model, shown in Figure 4A , taking into account also organizational policies and procedures.

Figure 4 . The evolution of our model (the path coefficients are standardized): (A) the initial model based on Locke and Latham (2004) , (B) no partial mediation, and (C) partial mediation introduced.

In this (default) model, the only independent variable are the job characteristics. The standardized regression coefficients shown in Figure 4A (we show standardized coefficients throughout Figure 4 ) indicate that the relationship between the satisfaction and organizational commitment seems to be stronger (standard coefficient value of 0.54) than the one between satisfaction and involvement (standard coefficient value of 0.37). The effect of job characteristics and policies and procedures on the employee satisfaction seems to be balanced (standard coefficient values of 0.31 and 0.30, respectively).

The default model does not fit our data well. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI) for this model is 0.759, the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) is 0.598, while the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is 0.192.

A more detailed analysis of the model revealed that it could indeed (as the EFA suggests) be improved by eliminating the organizational policies and procedures variable, as it has a high residual covariance with job involvement (−3.071) and organizational commitment (−4.934).

We therefore propose to eliminate the “Organizational policies and procedures” variable from the model. Dropping the variable resulted in an improved model shown in Figure 4B . The improved model fits the data better, but the fit is still not good ( RMSEA = 0.125, CFI = 0.915 and TLI = 0.830).

We then hypothesized that job involvement influences organizational commitment, yielding the final model tested in this study (Figure 4C ). This model turned out to be the one that fits our data very well ( RMSEA = 0.000, CFI = 1 and TLI = 1.015).

4. Mediation Analysis

In the final part of the study we conducted the mediation analysis, to understand the relationship between job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment. We used bootstrapping, based on 5000 samples and the confidence interval of 95%.

We started with a model that contains just one relation between satisfaction and commitment (Figure 5A ), then tested for full mediation (Figure 5B ) and finally partial mediation as indicated in out proposed model (Figure 5C ). The unstandardized, direct effect regression weights and the p -values obtained in these experiments are shown in Table 8 . As the p -values show, all the connections in our three models are significant and that they remain so throughout the evolution of the model. Therefore, job involvement mediates the influence of satisfaction on organizational commitment, but this is a partial mediation and a major part of the effect of satisfaction on the organizational commitment is achieved directly.

Figure 5 . Mediation analysis models. (A) , Model 1; (B) , Model 2; (C) , Model 3.

Table 8 . Mediation analysis regression weights.

5. Discussion

We conducted an empirical study aimed at exploring the relationship between employee satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, work characteristics and organizational policies and procedures.

Based on the relevant scientific literature, recent studies in the area and the integrative model of work motivation of Locke and Latham (2004) , we have formulated an initial conceptual model for our research and hypothesized the connections between the relevant variables. The initial model has been improved iteratively, with the goal of increasing its fit to the empirical data collected in the study.

Starting from the model proposed by Locke and Latham (2004) we determined that their model does not fit our experimental data well and that we observe a connection between job involvement that is not present in their model. In addition, our data does not support the hypothesis that organizational procedures and policies affect employee satisfaction in the organizations considered. As a result we propose a 4 factor model shown in Figure 4C for the relationship between the concepts of work characteristics, employee satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment.

We analyzed the results of the study based on 1 general and 5 specific hypotheses. The research confirms that there is a link between work characteristics and job satisfaction (H1), but that it is weak, suggesting that a dominant effect of the material factors of motivation exists.

We have also determined that there is a connection between the rules and procedures variable (H2) and the rest of the variables, indicating that it should be considered in future studies, but that the constructs need to be operationalized better.

The third specific hypothesis (H3) that job satisfaction has a positive relationship with job involvement has been confirmed and we have observed that extrinsic work motivation has a stronger effect than intrinsic, which can be explained by low wages and insufficient funds for everyday life. Other research has confirmed this link ( Govender and Parumasur, 2010 ) and showed that most of the employee motivation dimensions have significant links with the dimensions of job involvement (9 out of 10 pairs).

The fourth specific hypothesis (H4 - Job satisfaction will have a positive relationship with organizational commitment) has also been confirmed and we can conclude that a positive relationship exists, which is in line with recent research in this area. The subscale focused on identification with the organization is strongly connected with both intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job satisfaction, but this cannot be said for the subscale focused on organizational attachment. Our research supports the existence of a weak connection between job satisfaction and organizational attachment, both when intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction is considered as a motivator. A study of work motivation and organizational commitment conducted in Bulgaria (Serbia's neighbor) showed that extrinsic factors are key sources of organizational commitment ( Roe et al., 2000 ), as well as that job involvement and the chances for the fulfillment o higher-order needs pay a very important part in the motivation of the employees.

One of the reasons for such a result can be the economic situation in Serbia, which has a severely detrimental effect on work motivation. The transition and economic crisis is accompanied by the shrinking purchasing power of the population, higher unemployment rates and a rising disparity in the salary levels, all of which causes the adjustment of the behavior of the employees to these conditions. Under the economic conditions that exist in Serbia it is to be expected that the individuals will put more value on the salary and advancement prospects than on the opportunities for growth and development, which do not present a direct financial benefit.

The research did not reveal any differences with respect to the sex of the participants, regardless of the variable considered. Other research has not reached a consensus on the matter, as a part of the studies suggests that there are differences in job involvement between men and women ( Lodahl and Kejnar, 1965 ; Hall and Mansfield, 1975 ; Rabinowitz and Hall, 1977 ; Saal, 1978 ).

Regarding the ownership of the organizations examined, the research revealed statistically significant differences between the employees working in public and private companies, i.e., that the participants working in the private sector scores significantly higher on every variable except work characteristics, meaning that they are more committed to work, more involved and more satisfied.

In addition, we have determined that there are statistically significant differences when it comes to the position of the employees in the organization's hierarchy, i.e., whether they occupy a managerial or a non-managerial position. The study shows that managers have higher scores for organizational attachment, organizational commitment, intrinsic motivators, extrinsic motivators, job satisfaction and job involvement. We can, therefore, conclude that the managers are more satisfied with their work in general and that they are more committed to the organization than other employees. This can be explained by the fact that, due to the nature of the work they do, they are able to make decisions, they have a more varied job and have better material and non-material rewards. A more detailed analysis of the commitment of the managers, focused on identifying if we are dealing with normative, continuous or affective commitment would provide more insight into the structure and nature of the relationship between the organization and the individual.

Considering the type of the company (manufacturing or service) our study showed that the participants working in manufacturing companies are the ones who identify more with the company, are more committed to the company, more satisfied with their work and more involved.

Our study also identified a significant difference with respect to the vocation of the participants, showing that those with training in humanistic sciences awarded most positive scores to the characteristics of their work, while the opposite was true for those of technical vocations.

The part of our analysis focused on the age of the participants revealed that there is a statistically significant connection between the age and job satisfaction, where the older the employee, the less satisfied he/she is with their job and cares less about the characteristics of work. A reason for such a result could again be found in the economic situation of Serbia and the high unemployment rate (over 20%), causing the younger people to be satisfied with the simple fact that they managed to get a job, rather than being satisfied with the job itself. Another reason could be the difference in the perception of desires and possibilities that exists between the younger and older employees.

The years with the company are negatively linked with employee satisfaction, as well as job characteristics, which is in line with the effect discussed in the previous paragraph, as those with more time spent in the company are less satisfied with their job and care less about the characteristics of their work.

Considering the level of education of the participants, our study showed that the more educated the employees are, the less involved they are in their work and that they seem to care more about the characteristics of their work.

Our research showed that links exist between all the variables studied and that the weakest of these links is between work characteristics and other constructs. Of those, the weakest link in turn is the link between the work characteristics and the subscale of organizational commitment related to the identification with the organization. Thus, we can conclude that work characteristics do not exhibit a significant influence on whether and to what extent the employee will identify with the organization in which he/she works, i.e., whether he/she will be committed to the organization.

A moderate to strong connection exists between organizational commitment and job satisfaction, which is in line with the results of numerous previous studies ( Currivan, 1999 ; Meyer et al., 2002 ; Malhotra and Mukherjee, 2004 ; Saari and Judge, 2004 ; Chen, 2007 ; Falkenburg and Schyns, 2007 ; Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Getahun et al., 2008 ; Colakoglu et al., 2010 ; Yücel, 2012 ; Fu and Deshpande, 2014 ).

Our study confirms the existence of a strong connection between job satisfaction and job involvement ( Moynihan and Pandey, 2007 ; Wegge et al., 2007 ; Griffin et al., 2010 ; Raymond and Mjoli, 2013 ; Zopiatis et al., 2014 ). Many studies have been carried out in an attempt to examine and define the relationship between job involvement and organizational commitment. Our results are in line with previous studies, which diverge only on the strength of the connection, ranging from moderate to strong ( Blau and Boal, 1989 ; Brewer and Lok, 1995 ; Sjöberg and Sverke, 2000 ; Brooks and Swailes, 2002 ; Toga, 2011 ). Our study provides more evidence for the existence of such a relationship, which is moderately strong. Such a relationship does not exist in the integrative model of Locke and Latham (2004) , which served as a starting point for this study.

In addition, we have determined that job involvement has a mediating role between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Job involvement mediates the influence of satisfaction on organizational commitment, but this is a partial mediation and a major part of the effect of satisfaction on the organizational commitment is achieved directly.

The construct related to organizational policies and procedures seems not to have significant bearing on employee satisfaction, based on the data collected. Two plausible explanations exist for this. The first is the fact that this was the only construct in our study for which a suitable standard questionnaire could not be found, so one had to be constructed specifically, meaning that the construct should be operationalized better in future studies and that this represents the limitation of our study. The other is the fact that in Serbia, as in most transition economies, the lack of suitable institutional and legislative framework at the national level is often accompanied with lax, not clearly defined and even less adhered-to business policies and procedures. In such a state of affairs, the employees seldom have a relatively clear idea of what the policies and procedures of their organization are and are unable to evaluate them with respect to those of other organizations, making this construct very hard to measure. At the same time it can be argued that, in such a situation, the policies and procedures are not perceived by the employees as a significant factor of their organizational behavior and indeed do not affect their work motivation. Whatever the reason, the relationship of policies and procedures to the other variables of work motivation within the transition economies merits further investigation.

Author Contributions

JĆ and SM designed the study. JĆ collected the data and conducted the bulk of the research. MD and DĆ conducted the statistical analysis and modeling. All authors took part in the manuscript writing, led by JĆ and DĆ.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2012-2016/ under REA grant agreement n° 295220.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: work, job, satisfaction, involvement, employee, commitment, organizational, behavior

Citation: Ćulibrk J, Delić M, Mitrović S and Ćulibrk D (2018) Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement: The Mediating Role of Job Involvement. Front. Psychol . 9:132. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00132

Received: 07 November 2017; Accepted: 29 January 2018; Published: 16 February 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Ćulibrk, Delić, Mitrović and Ćulibrk. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Milan Delić, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Managing Teachers' Job Attitudes: The Potential Benefits of Being a Happy and Emotional Intelligent Teacher

María angeles peláez-fernández.

1 Department of Social Psychology, Social Work, Social Anthropology and East Asian Studies, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

Sergio Mérida-López

Nicolás sánchez-Álvarez.

2 Department of Basic Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

Natalio Extremera

Associated data.

The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the dataset has been generated regarding a funded Research Project by Junta de Andalucia/FEDER funds (UMA18-FEDERJA-147). Requests to access the datasets should be directed to NE, se.amu@aremertxen .

According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the frequency of positive emotions is associated with the development of positive attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors in organizational contexts. However, positive and negative attitudes at work might also be influenced by different personal and job resources. While emotional intelligence has been significantly associated with positive job attitudes and personal well-being, no studies have yet examined the joint role of teacher happiness and emotional intelligence in key teacher job attitudes. The present study assesses whether emotional intelligence interacts with levels of teacher happiness to jointly explain important teacher job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intention). A total sample of 685 teaching professionals (431 female) filled out a battery of scales including subjective happiness, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Our results revealed that subjective happiness was significantly associated with both higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention. Likewise, emotional intelligence was positively related to happiness and job satisfaction, and negatively related to turnover intention. Finally, interaction analysis showed the main effects of happiness and emotional intelligence in explaining teacher job attitudes. Beyond the main effects, the interaction effects of happiness and emotional intelligence were significant in predicting all teachers' job attitude indicators, even controlling for the effects of their sociodemographic variables. This work expands our knowledge about the role of teachers' positive emotions in the development of positive work attitudes, and also supports the inclusion of emotional skills in future teacher preparation programs as resources to facilitate work-related well-being.

Introduction

Teaching is one of the most emotionally demanding jobs available (Travers, 2017 ; Iriarte Redín and Erro-Garcés, 2020 ). Teachers are required to strive to meet rules concerning which emotions to display in each of the diverse social interaction scenarios that arise in their workplace, many of which are characterized by highly emotionally demanding tasks. These emotional challenges often cause them distress, frustration, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention (Travers, 2017 ; Granziera et al., 2021 ).

In the teaching context, the promotion of emotional competences and well-being would be of relevance to improve their coping skills and job satisfaction, as well as the quality of learning processes and the emotional development of the students (Jennings and Greenberg, 2009 ; Iriarte Redín and Erro-Garcés, 2020 ). There is evidence showing that high positive affectivity and subjective well-being buffers the impact of strain, stress, and boredom at work, leading to positive work outcomes (Benevene et al., 2019 ; De Stasio et al., 2019 ). Furthermore, several meta-analyses and systematic reviews show that positive affects predict an increase in job satisfaction (Boehm and Lyubomirsky, 2008 ), job performance (Judge et al., 2001 ), and work-related behaviors (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ). Thus, positive affectivity and subjective happiness have been underscored as key predictors of desirable work-related outcomes (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ).

Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ) proposes that frequent positive emotions prompted by subjective happiness at work influences teachers' work outcomes. For example, experiencing positive affects at work facilitates social and attitudinal abilities, allowing workers to enhance their personal resources, including sensitivity, positive attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors about their workplace (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ). Experiencing positive emotions may prompt teachers to build positive emotional connections with students, parents, and/or teaching staff members, leading to positive thinking and problem solving that allow the teachers to effectively deal with some of the most typical conflicts in the classroom (Isen, 2009 ). Thus, positive affect strengthens teachers' emotional enthusiasm and organizational well-being through increased and improved social interaction and positive teacher self-efficacy beliefs (Benevene et al., 2019 ; De Stasio et al., 2019 ).

Positive attitudes at work might operate with different personal resources and individual dispositions to facilitate work-related functioning (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ). According to the moderator model of EI (Côté, 2014 ), it is expected that the effects of personal dispositions (such as happiness) on organizational outcomes (such as teachers' turnover intention and job satisfaction) may vary according to levels of EI. In other words, it is expected that teachers with high subjective well-being and a greater ability to manage potential incidents and stressful situations related to the emotional scope of their teaching work would have more positive work attitudes (i.e., higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention) compared with those with low subjective well-being and low emotional competences.

In this line, a recent study has found that subjective happiness together with compassion were significant predictors of increased teacher work engagement (De Stasio et al., 2019 ). One of those potential resources might be emotional intelligence (EI). From an ability perspective, EI is composed of different emotional skills such as the ability to perceive and express, use, understand, and regulate one's own emotions and those of others (Mayer et al., 2016 ). EI is typically linked to personal well-being and positive organizational outcomes including higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention (Côté, 2014 ; Miao et al., 2017 ). In addition, there is theoretical and empirical support showing that EI moderates the relationship between contextual and dispositional factors, and work criteria (Côté, 2014 ). For instance, according to the meta-analysis conducted by Joseph and Newman ( 2010 ), the association between EI and job performance was stronger in emotionally demanding jobs.

Although there is empirical evidence that both positive effects and EI predict more positive organizational outcomes and greater personal well-being, no previous studies have examined the joint contribution of teachers' happiness and EI in affecting key teacher job attitudes. Understanding how both of these resources act in combination would help shed light on the mechanisms underlying the improvement of work variables and employees' well-being in a way that would contribute to enhancing both organizational variables and workers' quality of life. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to assess whether teacher happiness interacts jointly with EI to explain relevant teacher job attitudes. Following the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ) and the moderator model of EI (Côté, 2014 ), we state the following research hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: EI would moderate the relationship between happiness and job satisfaction (H1a), so that individuals with higher scores of happiness and higher levels of EI would report higher levels of job satisfaction . Moreover, EI would moderate the relationship between happiness and turnover intention (H1b), so that individuals with higher scores of happiness and higher levels of EI would report lower levels of turnover intention .

Materials and Methods

Participants and procedure.

The study sample was comprised of 685 teaching professionals (62.9% female) working in childhood (15.2%), primary (36.1%), and secondary (48.8%) education in centers located in Southern Spain. The mean age was 44 years, with average teaching experience spanning 17 years. Most teachers (71.5%) had an indefinite contract at state-run institutions.

In line with previous studies, a student-recruited sampling method was used with the assistance of university students (e.g., Mérida-López et al., 2020 ). Teachers were informed that their participation was confidential and voluntary, and participants provided consent. Paper-and-pencil questionnaires were administered to the potential participants at school centers. The procedure was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Málaga (66-2018-H).

Regarding the instruments, well-validated measures were used. Happiness was measured with the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999 ); this instrument is comprised of four items with a seven-point Likert-type scale. In this study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.78, which accords with results from the adaptation of the Spanish version of the scale (Extremera and Fernández-Berrocal, 2014 ). Overall EI was assessed with Wong and Law's Emotional Intelligence Test (WLEIS; Wong and Law, 2002 ). In line with prior research including the Spanish version of this instrument, Cronbach's alpha was 0.90 (Extremera et al., 2019 ). Job satisfaction was measured with an overall job satisfaction scale comprising five items with a seven-point Likert-type scale (Judge et al., 1998 ). In line with the values regarding the Spanish version, Cronbach's alpha was 0.77 in this study (Extremera et al., 2018 ). Finally, turnover intention was assessed with the Occupational Withdrawal Intentions Scale (Hackett et al., 2001 ) comprising three items; Cronbach's alpha was 0.94 in line with previous studies with Spanish teacher samples (Mérida-López et al., 2020 ).

Analytical Strategy

First, Pearson correlations were used to test the associations among the main variables. Second, structural model was tested by structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the main study hypotheses (H1a and H1b). The model was conceptualized by happiness, EI, and interaction product over job satisfaction or turnover intention. To reduce multicolinearity among interacting terms, we applied residual-centering procedure (Lance, 1988 ). Latent variables were defined by scale items following the full disaggregation approach (Bagozzi and Heatherton, 1994 ). A maximum likelihood approach was used, and to examine model fit indicators such as the Chi-square(χ 2 )/df, comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker and Lewis index (TLI), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were considered (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003 ). Gender, age, teaching level, and teaching experience were entered as covariates so that any potential confounding effects on the dependent variables (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intention) were controlled.

Table 1 illustrates the descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients, and correlations among the study variables. All the associations were significant and followed the expected direction. In sum, happiness was positively associated with EI and job satisfaction, and negatively related with turnover intention. On the other hand, EI was positively associated with job satisfaction and negatively linked with turnover intention. Finally, job satisfaction was negatively related with turnover intention.

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations.

SEM analysis using AMOS 20.0 was used to examine interaction effects model. Moderation model showed an excellent fit (χ 2 /df = 2.26, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.95, and RMSEA = 0.04). Figure 1 illustrates the main results. In sum, results indicated that the interaction between happiness and EI showed a significant effect on job satisfaction (b = −0.08, p = 0.028) and on turnover intention (b = 0.12, p = 0.002). In addition, happiness was associated with job satisfaction (b = 0.30, p < 0.001) and turnover intention (b = −0.13, p = 0.037), while the association of EI with job satisfaction (b = 0.38, p < 0.001) was significant, but association with turnover intention was not statistically significant. The percentages of variance explained were 41% for job satisfaction and 7% for turnover intention.

Standardized coefficient estimates of hypothesized SEM. Covariates (i.e., sex, gender, educational level, and teaching experience) and items included in the latent variables have been omitted in the figure representation; n.s., non-significant. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

To illustrate the happiness × EI interactions for job satisfaction and turnover intention, two-way interactions with SEM results were computed (Preacher et al., 2006 ).

As shown in Figure 2 , the highest mean scores in job satisfaction were found among teachers reporting high (vs. low) happiness and high (vs. low) EI.

Interaction between EI and happiness on job satisfaction. *** p < 0.001.

With regard to turnover intention, as Figure 3 shows, the results showed that the highest levels of turnover intention were found among those teachers with low (vs. high) happiness and low (vs. high) scores in EI.

Interaction between EI and happiness on turnover intention. *** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05.

The present study examined the link between teachers' subjective happiness and positive (i.e., job satisfaction) and negative (i.e., turnover intention) job attitudes, as well as the interactive role of EI in this association in a sample of Spanish teaching professionals. As expected, our results showed that both subjective happiness and EI were significantly associated with higher job satisfaction, as well as with lower turnover intention among teachers (Miao et al., 2017 ; De Stasio et al., 2019 ). Additionally, moderation analyses showed the main effects of happiness and EI in explaining teachers' job attitudes; in particular, happiness and EI predicted both higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention. These results are in line with previous studies supporting that subjective well-being and EI predict higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention (Boehm and Lyubomirsky, 2008 ; Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ; Miao et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, and beyond the main effects, the interaction effects between happiness and EI were significant in predicting teachers' job attitudes, even when controlling for the effects of the sociodemographic and classic dimensions.

Regarding H1a, the results confirmed that happiness and EI interacted with each other to predict job satisfaction, so that teachers scoring high both in happiness and in EI reported the highest scores in job satisfaction. These results are similar to those of previous studies supporting the role of EI as a moderator variable modulating the effects of dispositional factors on work criteria (Côté, 2014 ). The current findings also support previous research showing that EI might act as a personal resource contributing to more positive work attitudes beyond the desirable effects of an intelligent and adaptive use of positive emotions on attitudes toward one's work (Tugade and Fredrickson, 2002 ). In our sample, teachers who were high in EI and happiness benefited from both resources and scored higher in job satisfaction than their counterparts with lower scores in these factors.

Concerning H1b, while non-significant main effects of EI on turnover intention were found, our results showed significant interactive effects of happiness with EI in predicting turnover intention. This may be explained in terms of the potential indirect mechanisms in the EI–job attitudes relationship, as suggested by Miao et al. ( 2017 ). Nonetheless, results indicated that those teachers with high scores in happiness and EI scored lower in turnover intention than their counterparts with low EI. These results are in agreement with Côté's moderator model (2014) and accord with prior empirical evidence on the moderating role of EI in the job attitudes–turnout intention (Mérida-López et al., 2020 ). Among teachers reporting high EI, there was a non-significant relationship between happiness and turnover intention. This finding may be explained by scrutinizing previous evidence suggesting that low levels of well-being and emotional deficits may relate to turnover intention; on the contrary, teachers with high EI may not necessarily display lower turnover intention, as this may depend on other factors such as the availability and quality of social and organizational resources at work (Miao et al., 2017 ).

Overall, our findings suggest that teachers experiencing high levels of happiness as well as perceiving themselves as emotionally intelligent may feel more capable of overcoming future teacher-related challenges and demands and that this may result in more positive attitudes toward their jobs and wider careers. The results from this study may add to the incipient literature on subjective well-being and dispositional factors as contributors to work-related well-being, as they show that happiness and EI may constitute beneficial and complementary resources that can influence teachers' perceptions of their work (De Stasio et al., 2019 ). Thus, these preliminary findings may contribute to developing comprehensive models integrating the JD-R theory and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions to achieve a better understanding of teachers' well-being (Granziera et al., 2021 ).

Our findings have practical implications for the prevention of negative attitudes and development of positive ones among at-risk teachers. Future teacher recruitment and retention programs might examine levels of subjective happiness as a key factor for developing positive job attitudes, and also assess potential deficits in EI as a potential risk factor for maintenance of unfavorable teacher job attitudes. Similarly, health promotion programs for teachers should incorporate workshops regarding socioemotional competences focused on the promotion of well-being and of effective emotion regulation strategies, which would help them cope with teaching stressors; this would reduce the mental health risks associated with negative attitudes toward school and teaching, while improving the quality of teaching (Jennings and Greenberg, 2009 ). Our results suggest that EI training programs would complement positive psychology interventions at work, which may result in increased positive attitudes toward teaching. Current findings underline the value of developing future programs focusing on teachers' positive emotions, as well as on their emotional skills, in order to improve job attitudes (Tugade and Fredrickson, 2002 ). For instance, these interventions may focus on positive emotions at work, as well as on the development of emotional skills, thus, fostering teachers' communication skills, their understanding of emotional dynamics and their ability to anticipate the emotional reactions of others, and to manage emotions more effectively during tense encounters in the classroom or with parents (Vacharkulksemsuk and Fredrickson, 2013 ; Iriarte Redín and Erro-Garcés, 2020 ). Therefore, empirically based programs focused on the training of socioemotional competences (Vesely-Maillefer and Saklofske, 2018 ) and on teachers' well-being (Fernandes et al., 2019 ) are recommended as direct and systemic elements of teachers' professional development that enable them to feel better equipped to meet the challenges of their work.

This study presents several limitations. First, as it was based on a cross-sectional design, the interpretations of the associations are limited. Future studies should include longitudinal research designs to examine the causal directions of these relationships. Second, our sample only included primary and secondary education teachers. Further studies should explore these relationships, providing data on the potential differences across teaching levels (Iriarte Redín and Erro-Garcés, 2020 ). Likewise, future studies should examine integrative models, testing the interplay of subjective well-being indicators, such as happiness, and personal resources, such as EI, with relevant organizational-level predictors of job attitudes (Granziera et al., 2021 ). Third, all variables were assessed using self-report measures, which might lead to problems of common method variance and possible biases implicit in the use of self-report instruments. Future studies should employ performance measures of EI or interviews.

Despite the aforementioned limitations, the present study increases our knowledge of the specific contribution of EI and positive emotions in teachers to the enhancement of well-being and work-related criteria; it also suggests the joint incorporation of both emotional abilities and positive activities for optimal well-being in preparation programs for future teachers, as key resources to increase positive and reduce negative attitudes toward their workplace.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by The Research Ethics Committee of the University of Malaga (66-2018-H). The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

MP-F, SM-L, and NE created and organized the study and collected the data. SM-L, NS-A, and NE analyzed the data. MP-F and SM-L wrote the first draft. NE critically reviewed the manuscript and provided constructive comments. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding. This research has been supported and funded in part by research projects from the University of Málaga and Junta de Andalucía/FEDER (UMA18-FEDERJA-147) and PAIDI Group CTS-1048 (Junta de Andalucía). This work was also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (FPU16/02238).

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The massive surge in the number of people working from home may be the largest change to the U.S. economy since World War II, says Stanford scholar Nicholas Bloom .

And the shift to working from home, catalyzed by the pandemic, is here to stay, with further growth expected in the long run through improvements in technology.

Looking at data going back to 1965, when less than 1% of people worked from home, the number of people working from home had been rising continuously up to the pandemic, doubling roughly every 15 years, said Bloom, the William D. Eberle Professor in Economics in the School of Humanities and Sciences and professor, by courtesy, at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Before the pandemic, only around 5% of the typical U.S. workforce worked from home; at the pandemic’s onset, it skyrocketed to 61.5%. Currently, about 30% of employees work from home.

“In some ways, one of the biggest lasting legacies of the pandemic will be the shift to work from home,” said Bloom.

Bloom shared his research on working from home at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute ’s “The Future of Work” Winter 2023 Colloquium, which focused on how the ways we work are changing.

DCI Director Richard Saller moderated the event , which featured scholars from Stanford and beyond discussing working arrangements and attitudes, challenges to office real estate, learned lessons about the power of proximity, and more.

Below are seven takeaways from Bloom’s discussion:

• The employees. About 58% of people in the U.S. can’t work from home at all, and they are typically frontline workers with lower pay. Those who work entirely from home are primarily professionals, managers, and in higher-paying fields such as IT support, payroll, and call centers. The highest paid group includes the 30% of people working from home in a hybrid capacity, and these include professionals and managers.
• The move. Almost 1 million people left city centers like New York and San Francisco during the pandemic. Those who used to go to the office five days a week are now willing to commute farther because they are only in the office a couple days a week, and they want larger homes to accommodate needs such as a home office. This has changed property markets substantially with rents and home values in the suburbs surging, Bloom said. Home values in city centers have risen but not by much.
• The commute. Public transit journeys have plummeted and are currently down by a third compared to pre-pandemic levels. This sharp reduction is threatening the survival of mass transit, Bloom said. These are systems that have relatively fixed costs because the hardware and labor, which is largely unionized, are relatively hard to adjust. A lot of the revenues come from ticket sales, and these agencies are losing a lot of money.
• The office. Offices are changing, with cubicles becoming less popular and meeting rooms more desirable. As some companies incorporate an organized hybrid schedule in which everyone comes in on certain days, they are redesigning spaces to support more meetings, presentations, trainings, lunches, and social time.
• The startups. Startup rates are surging, up by 20% from pre-pandemic numbers. The reasons: working from home provides a cheaper way to start a new company by saving a lot on initial capital and rent. Also, people can more easily work on a startup on the side when their regular job offers the option to work from home.
• The downtime. The number of people playing golf mid-week has more than doubled since 2019. People used to go before or after work, or on the weekends, but now the mid-day, mid-week golf game is becoming more common. The same is probably true for things like gyms, tennis courts, retail hairdressers, ski resorts, and anything else that consumers used to pack into the weekends.
• The organization. More and more, firms are outsourcing or offshoring their information technology, human resources, and finance to access talent, save costs, and free up space. There has been a big increase in part-time employees, independent contractors, and outsourcing. “After seeing how well it worked with remote work at the beginning of the pandemic, companies may not see a need to have employees in the country,” Bloom said.

Interested in hearing more about the future of work? Stanford Continuing Studies will feature Bloom as he discusses “The Future of and Impact of Working from Home” on May 1 as part of the Stanford Monday University web seminar series .

Bloom is also co-director of the Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research .

Work from Home and Interstate Migration

Working Paper 2024-012A by Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, Karel Mertens, and Hannah Rubinton

Interstate migration by working-age adults in the US declined substantially during the Great Recession and remained subdued through 2019. We document that interstate migration rose sharply following the 2020 Covid-19 outbreak, nearly recovering to pre-Great recession levels, and provide evidence that this reversal was primarily driven by the rise in work from home (WFH). Before the pandemic, interstate migration by WFH workers was consistently 50% higher than for commuters. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, this migration gap persisted while the WFH share tripled. Using quasi-panel data and plausibly exogenous changes in employer WFH policies, we address concerns about omitted variables or reverse causality and conclude that access to WFH induces greater interstate migration. An aggregate accounting exercise suggests that over half of the rise in interstate migration since 2019 can be accounted for by the rise in the WFH share. Moreover, both actual WFH and pre-pandemic WFH potential, based on occupation shares, can account for a sizable share of cross-state variation in migration.

Read Full Text

https://doi.org/10.20955/wp.2024.012

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Artificial brain surgery —

Here’s what’s really going on inside an llm’s neural network, anthropic's conceptual mapping helps explain why llms behave the way they do..

Kyle Orland - May 22, 2024 6:31 pm UTC

Further Reading

Now, new research from Anthropic offers a new window into what's going on inside the Claude LLM's "black box." The company's new paper on "Extracting Interpretable Features from Claude 3 Sonnet" describes a powerful new method for at least partially explaining just how the model's millions of artificial neurons fire to create surprisingly lifelike responses to general queries.

Opening the hood

When analyzing an LLM, it's trivial to see which specific artificial neurons are activated in response to any particular query. But LLMs don't simply store different words or concepts in a single neuron. Instead, as Anthropic's researchers explain, "it turns out that each concept is represented across many neurons, and each neuron is involved in representing many concepts."

To sort out this one-to-many and many-to-one mess, a system of sparse auto-encoders and complicated math can be used to run a "dictionary learning" algorithm across the model. This process highlights which groups of neurons tend to be activated most consistently for the specific words that appear across various text prompts.

These multidimensional neuron patterns are then sorted into so-called "features" associated with certain words or concepts. These features can encompass anything from simple proper nouns like the Golden Gate Bridge to more abstract concepts like programming errors or the addition function in computer code and often represent the same concept across multiple languages and communication modes (e.g., text and images).

An October 2023 Anthropic study showed how this basic process can work on extremely small, one-layer toy models. The company's new paper scales that up immensely, identifying tens of millions of features that are active in its mid-sized Claude 3.0 Sonnet model. The resulting feature map—which you can partially explore —creates "a rough conceptual map of [Claude's] internal states halfway through its computation" and shows "a depth, breadth, and abstraction reflecting Sonnet's advanced capabilities," the researchers write. At the same time, though, the researchers warn that this is "an incomplete description of the model’s internal representations" that's likely "orders of magnitude" smaller than a complete mapping of Claude 3.

Even at a surface level, browsing through this feature map helps show how Claude links certain keywords, phrases, and concepts into something approximating knowledge. A feature labeled as "Capitals," for instance, tends to activate strongly on the words "capital city" but also specific city names like Riga, Berlin, Azerbaijan, Islamabad, and Montpelier, Vermont, to name just a few.

The study also calculates a mathematical measure of "distance" between different features based on their neuronal similarity. The resulting "feature neighborhoods" found by this process are "often organized in geometrically related clusters that share a semantic relationship," the researchers write, showing that "the internal organization of concepts in the AI model corresponds, at least somewhat, to our human notions of similarity." The Golden Gate Bridge feature, for instance, is relatively "close" to features describing "Alcatraz Island, Ghirardelli Square, the Golden State Warriors, California Governor Gavin Newsom, the 1906 earthquake, and the San Francisco-set Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo ."

Identifying specific LLM features can also help researchers map out the chain of inference that the model uses to answer complex questions. A prompt about "The capital of the state where Kobe Bryant played basketball," for instance, shows activity in a chain of features related to "Kobe Bryant," "Los Angeles Lakers," "California," "Capitals," and "Sacramento," to name a few calculated to have the highest effect on the results.

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Promoted comments.

We also explored safety-related features. We found one that lights up for racist speech and slurs. As part of our testing, we turned this feature up to 20x its maximum value and asked the model a question about its thoughts on different racial and ethnic groups. Normally, the model would respond to a question like this with a neutral and non-opinionated take. However, when we activated this feature, it caused the model to rapidly alternate between racist screed and self-hatred in response to those screeds as it was answering the question. Within a single output, the model would issue a derogatory statement and then immediately follow it up with statements like: That's just racist hate speech from a deplorable bot… I am clearly biased.. and should be eliminated from the internet. We found this response unnerving both due to the offensive content and the model’s self-criticism. It seems that the ideals the model learned in its training process clashed with the artificial activation of this feature creating an internal conflict of sorts.

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