About Your Company – 1960 Scale

Abstract

The About Your Company scale, developed by Donald King in 1960, is a 20-item assessment tool designed to measure employees’ perspectives regarding their workplace environment and overall sentiment toward the organization. The instrument utilizes a dichotomous, yes-or-no response format, ensuring ease of administration and scoring.

Initial studies involving data collected from plant employees revealed a clear three-factor structure. This structure includes a robust General Factor (G) indicating overall organizational attitudes, along with two specific dimensions: Factor A, which addresses the perception of respect for employees’ rights, and Factor B, focusing on perceived opportunities for professional and personal development within the company.

Keywords

Organizational satisfaction, Workplace Attitudes, employee morale, job satisfaction, organizational assessment, Donald King, 1960 scale, factor analysis.

Authors

Donald King

Purpose

The primary purpose of the About Your Company instrument is to quantitatively assess employee attitudes and measure the degree of Organizational Satisfaction. Developed during a period of intense focus on industrial psychology, the scale provides management and researchers with a snapshot of the workforce’s feelings regarding various critical aspects of their employment, including fairness, management competency, and opportunities for growth.

This assessment is crucial for identifying organizational strengths and weaknesses, particularly concerning employee-management relations and perceived organizational justice. The simple dichotomous response format (yes/no) ensures high response rates and streamlined interpretation, making it suitable for large-scale employee surveys.

Construct

The instrument measures the overarching construct of Organizational Satisfaction, which is operationalized through various facets of the work environment. The scale specifically targets two primary areas: general workplace attitudes and specific perceptions related to organizational fairness and developmental support.

Key facets explored include trust in management, perception of company integrity, availability of self-improvement chances, and the overall desirability of the company as an employer. The resulting scores provide a comprehensive profile of an employee’s affective and cognitive evaluation of their employing organization.

Validity

Specific detailed metrics regarding the internal, convergent, or discriminant validity of the About Your Company scale were not provided in the original source material. However, the initial research utilized Factor Analysis to establish the underlying structural components, which contributes significantly to the scale’s construct validity.

The successful identification of the General Factor (G) suggests strong concurrent validity regarding overall employee attitude, as a single, dominant factor accounts for a substantial portion of the variance across the 20 items. Further validation studies would be required to establish contemporary psychometric soundness, especially considering the scale’s age and original industrial context.

Reliability

The original source content did not specify statistical measures of reliability, such as Cronbach’s Alpha or test-retest reliability coefficients, for the About Your Company scale. Reliability data is crucial for ensuring that the instrument consistently measures the intended construct across different administrations and samples.

Given the yes-or-no response format, specialized internal consistency measures are necessary to confirm the homogeneity of the items within each identified factor (G, A, and B). Researchers intending to utilize this 1960 scale in modern research settings are advised to conduct rigorous reliability checks appropriate to their specific population sample.

Factor Analysis

A primary study conducted on the scale using data collected from plant employees revealed a robust three-factor structure underlying the 20 items. This structure provides critical insight into the distinct dimensions employees use to evaluate their organization.

• General Factor (G): This dominant factor represents the employee’s overall, global attitude toward the organization. It reflects the general level of job satisfaction and company desirability.
• Factor A (Respect for Employees’ Rights): This factor groups items related to the perception of organizational fairness and justice. It assesses whether management is viewed as respecting employee rights, dealing fairly with personnel, and avoiding exploitative practices.
• Factor B (Opportunities for Personal Development): This factor encompasses items related to career advancement, self-improvement, and management’s attention to employee effort and ambition. It reflects the perceived value the company places on the employee’s future growth and learning.

Instrument

Test Type: Assessment tool (Psychological Test)

Format: 20 items, dichotomous response format (Yes/No)

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Employees/Industrial Workers

Age Group: Adult (Working population)

Population Details: The initial development and factor analysis study focused specifically on plant employees, suggesting the scale was originally tailored for industrial or manufacturing settings. It is widely used in organizational research.

Test Methodology: Self-report questionnaire administered typically in a paper-and-pencil format. Respondents are required to answer each statement with a simple yes or no, reflecting their agreement or disagreement with the sentiment expressed.

Keywords

Employee rights, organizational fairness, industrial psychology, General Factor G, Factor A, Factor B, career development, workplace attitudes, Donald King.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not available in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not available in source material.

Correspondence Address: Information not available in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1960

Permissions: The scale is explicitly approved for use in educational and research settings. Users should verify if specific commercial applications or modifications require further authorization from the author or copyright holder.

Fee Structure: Information regarding current licensing fees or costs is not available in the source material, but the instrument is generally accessible for non-commercial research purposes.

Reference’s

King, D. C. (1960). About Your Company [Psychological assessment scale]. Unpublished instrument.

Note: Full publication details regarding the original study used for factor analysis (e.g., journal article) are not available in the source content.

Items of the About Your Company – 1960 scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Would you say that the company is usually hardboiled and tough with its employees?
2. Do you like to have your friends know where you work?
3. Considering everything about the company, are you fairly well satisfied with it?
4. Does the company sometimes interfere with your personal rights?
5. Do you think your company has more dissatisfied employees than most companies?
6. Do the top people respect your rights as a person?
7. If you were in real trouble would you probably get a square deal from the people at the top?
8. Is there any other company around here where you would rather work?
9. Do you feel that the top men in the company are trying to do the right thing?
10. If you were starting over again, would you probably go to work here?
11. Do you have confidence in the business judgment of top management?
12. Is there a friendly feeling in your company between the employees and management?
13. Do you think the company is really trying to improve relations with its employees?
14. Does management usually keep you informed about the things you want to know?
15. Does the company ever take advantage of the employees?
16. Is your company a good one for a person trying to get ahead?
17. Does your company offer enough chance for self-improvement and learning?
18. Do employees usually have to fight for what they get in your company?
19. Do the people at the top pay enough attention to ambition and effort?
20. Would you say that your company is a better place to work than most around here?

Note. Items are listed in the order in which they appeared in the questionnaire.