Relationship of job involvement to perceived importance and satisfaction of employee needs

Abstract

The attitude of work alienation or job involvement has been considered as very central to work motivation (Katz and Kahn, 1966; Seeman, 1971) and yet very few studies have been done to explore the relationship between job involvement and patterns of perceived needs and their satisfactions on the job. Most of the theories of human motivation (Alderfer, 1972 ; Herzberg, 1966 ; Maslow, 1954) direct their efforts to identify the strength of various need categories and to suggest that job behaviour is primarily determined by the perceived strength and satisfaction of these needs in the employees. Very little attention has been paid by these theories to job involvement as a moderator variable influencing employee’s perception of importance, strength and satisfaction of his needs. The present study is an attempt to explore the relationship between the attitude of job involvement and patterns of perceived importance of the needs, and their satisfaction on the job.